Codex Reviews

[Malakithe]

They are starting. Im watching the Tabletop Tactics bat rep and reading the Goonhammer review.

[Karhedron]

For anyone who wants a peek.

 

https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-necrons-10th-edition-the-goonhammer-review/

[N1SB]

Transcendant C'tan can no longer take Enhancements...so no 4+++ FNP 

 

...but ALL C'tan, including the aforementioned Transcendant C'tan, natively get 5+++ FNP 

 

Net gain.  I'm assuming they still get their half-damage rule.  This is great.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

The detachments mostly look awesome, including the Cryptek court that looks a hell of a lot better than the WD version last edition, but some of those unit nerfs… they’re HEFTY. Like, call up Orikan and ask him to rewind us to fifth kind of hefty. 
 

Losing Lords is the BIGGEST blow, though. Both from a thematic standpoint (like, how do we have Overlords when there are no Lords to be Over, as I’ve seen others on reddit say?), and in a collection standpoint (I have ‘too many’ overlord models slash wanted to pick up some more Lords and I’m still going to do it but shoot man), and a gameplay point—lords were a nice cheap source of ResOrbs and it looks like that’s less important now but they’re really limiting us on them. Also, come on GW, I JUST bought an Anrakyr, not cool.
 

Cautiously hopeful that the crusade stuff and potential detachment fun will be enough to make up for it, if I can find a way to get my wraiths to and from games safely without busting their coils, but if not I’ll just hit the rewind button. 
 

The canoptek court is the closest thing I think we’ve got to 5th Ed levels of Royal Court shenanigans and that’s what I really want to replicate. Someone count how many character datasheets Marines have, again? grumble

[NTaW]

I'm sad to see walking Technomancers gone, though I get that GW is restricting wargear to what's made in plastic. On the other hand it is really cool to see that they can lead Wraiths now. I'll have to see about adjusting my list to accommodate this datasheet change the most since I used two kitbashed Crypteks for my units of Warriors.

 

Other than that, and I say this having only really looked at units I own, I'm feeling positive about how the Codex is looking. Not gunna lie I wiped a bit of sweat from my brow when I saw Lokhust Lords and Destroyers still in the mix. The Destroyers particularly are one of the original metal Necron units, from before their Heavy counterparts entered the fray in Finecast.

 

I'll have to go back and look over the Detachments again but they look interesting. The relocation one looks to be a bit of a party.

[Prot]

Reanimator down to 3"? That seems harsh. Maybe 12 was too much (Although I'd argue a stay at home blob has a lot of trouble scoring.)

 

I think 6" would have been the right medium here, but this might be too much for me to take one anymore pending the points adjustments.

[Tyriks]

Surprised how many people are saying the codex isn't much of an improvement over the index (at least as far as strength goes). Truly hope GW can finally control themselves as far as codex power creep goes.

 

The Canoptek Court and Obeisance detachments are probably where I'll be starting out. Both seem fun and some of my recent games might have gone better if I'd been able to use some of those rules. Of course a few people are saying Wraiths are pretty good again, which means I guess I finally need to finish rebasing mine. The end result is worth it but the process is very annoying! 

[Ahzek451]

After seeing many codex reviews, I'll preface with the "I'll ultimately wait until some game data is collected", but my gutt check so far is we took more hits than quality of life improvements. I would hazard that our power level is going to rely on how well the canoptek detachment works, possibly the hypercrypt one. 

 

We are following a pattern the last edition took so far, the first few books seem roughly mediocre and GW decided to ramp up the power level after. Will have to see. My humble opinion is while I do agree some of the things going on with cryptothralls and hexmarks were silly, GW may have overcorrected with an army that ended up currently settling around mid-tier before the codex *mind, we know the book was made months before this. Again, someone may end up finding a way to break a single build and that could mess with our overall power while leaving the rest of the army in the dust.

 

I do think it's a shame that crypteks cannot join lychguard, imotekh and orikan didn't get any more boosts, and the annihilation legion looks rather horrid. For a destroyer army, the primary army rules only apply to about half the army, where are the rules for hexmark and locusts?

 

But I'll be looking forward to trying an army of praetorians or canoptek units. 

 

[Karhedron]

Points changes may also impact things. If a unit's rules have changed significantly, it is reasonable to assume its cost will as well. Marine rules didn't change significantly between Index and Codex but Necrons have had more of a revamp. Overall they look good. Big bricks of resurrecting models are still viable but definitely not the only way to play.

[Prot]

Well I bought what I wanted. This is one of my oldest standing armies, and I was going to continue working on my latest iteration regardless of mass hysteria. 

 

It does turn out that the overall result of the reviews on the tube, etc are incredibly negative. And I do have some thoughts on that.

 

It appears there is a rebranding of the army to a large degree. The multitude of reviews I saw/read seem to point to a lot of nerfed datasheets.

 

And this appears to be true. If I'm being honest, the net effect is almost every unit I used was made worse in this codex. Sometimes it was understandable, but sometimes ... not so much. Gameplay (on my part) notwithstanding, I have to say some of this actually sucks.

 

Out of everything they nerfed, I think the overall, layered nerf to Warriors is really strange. Yet Immortals still feel like something you just take when you don't want Warrior bricks. Now the reanimation/survival factor of Warriors has gone down immensely. Adding units, using the Reanimator, and the Orb AND changing their inherent reanimation special rules is a real hard cut to the knee caps of this staple unit.

 

On one hand I could see they 'why' but if you're going to take the identity of the squad and hit it this hard, why would you reduce the effective damage output of it as well? At first I thought it was a type O to reduce the strength of the 12" guns down to S4. So just the single AP of damage is the only reason you would take reapers. (And lets be honest, everything has cover in 10th)

 

That's the biggest nerf I don't understand. It hits the unit very hard. I completely get not wanting unkillable bricks, but the army at higher levels did not win a ton with this strategy. In day to day gaming I only played 1 brick. It was killable if focused, but it more often than not did not kill much of note. 

 

I was okay with some of the Warrior nerfs, but I think they went too far when you look at every layer of nerf on that squad now, including the damage nerf (which was arguably lethargic before.)  So many hits to this squad from about 3-4 different sources.

 

Moving on... the weird take of the book on datasheets for me is the C'tan. Remove the Enhancement... sure no one was happy with this being a 'thing'. But give all C'tan a 5+ FnP, and then have them reduce their movement to 6"? Just weird. So they get an increase in survival but will be avoidable as the 'fly' keyword isn't going to help them much, and less at 6". It's just a weird one.

 

The feel of the book is quite different. It's times like this that I wish GW would just reinstate the limit rule of some units. I really liked using one of the Warrior units to be difficult for my opponents, but I never used 2-3 of these. The same goes for my Chaos Accursed Cultists. They can be abusive (See the World Championships) but I only ever used one. It remains fluffy, and not abused this way. 

 

So I see the codex as moving into a new era. Re-animation is just a side thing for a few units now. It's not a boardwide strategy anymore. (At least I don't see it as a valid one anway.)

 

I think it's up to the detachments now. A lot of people are negative on the units, so I think we are having to look at the detachments as being greater than the sum of the parts (IE: Datasheet nerfs). 

 

On the upside, I LOVE my Monolith. It took a weird sidegrade but it might be usable now ! (As long as I can move it!) I worked hard on finishing the model and I just think it's the Necron's iconic unit... sort of like the marines' Landraider. I'm looking forward to trying that detachment. 

 

The detachments will save us. I will miss a lot of what used to work, but I'm looking forward to a few cool looking playstyles. 

 

[Prot]

After doing some more research, I think I'm actually looking forward to the Canoptek Detachment to try first.  A lot of the units were older favourites that just didn't see a ton of play, especially in 9th/10th. 

 

Ironically when the preorders came up, I rounded up an order to get free shipping with some Wraiths, and that's going to be a unit I get to roll with a Technomancer. It should be fun. I'm trying to see what can be leveraged in the detachments, and not focus too much on the datasheet nerfs. (Similar to what happened to marines really.)

 

[Galron]

Aside from the pretty nasty nerfs to tomb blades my normal style lists stayed relatively unharmed(I actually never noticed they had 2+ BS particle beamers lol). The translocation dynasty will likely be my go to as I prefer a super highly mobile force rather than the silver tide that was so popular for awhile. I knew an army like Necrons would get hit with massive changes so I intentionally didnt play index very much in order not to get used to a particular style. Gotta put one of my centipedes back together, they seem pretty awesome now. I used wraiths before they were cool, now they are even better I suppose. I am not buying new crypteks. 

[Prot]

I do think the translocation dynasty is going to be very popular. I just like to do things a bit different.... One thing I am trying to figure out is the damage output. These overall changes move the bar on army resilience a lot lower. So I think we need to see a damage increase to get a net gain and make these detachments work. 

 

They all look fun, I guess points will dictate a lot of this. 

[Scribe]

There a screenshot of the Destroyer Cult/Flayed Ones detachment kicking around?

[Tyriks]

2 hours ago, Scribe said:

There a screenshot of the Destroyer Cult/Flayed Ones detachment kicking around?

I haven't seen a screen shot, but what reviews are saying is it's Destroyers and Flayed Ones can reroll charge rolls, and get +1 to charge if the target is below half strength. Seems kind of lackluster to me (though I'll still try it out once I paint my Flayed Ones).

[Scribe]

13 minutes ago, Tyriks said:

I haven't seen a screen shot, but what reviews are saying is it's Destroyers and Flayed Ones can reroll charge rolls, and get +1 to charge if the target is below half strength. Seems kind of lackluster to me (though I'll still try it out once I paint my Flayed Ones).

 

Yeah I've read it was on the weaker end, but if there was ever a Necron army I would complete, it would be something with Flayed Ones. :D

[Ahzek451]

It would have helped if a lot of the destroyer cult rules kicked in at half and below. Not below half. 

[Prot]

5 hours ago, Ahzek451 said:

It would have helped if a lot of the destroyer cult rules kicked in at half and below. Not below half. 

I agree. There’s a lot of MSU overall.  

[dice4thedicegod]

I honestly don’t think that it would have been OP for it to just be reroll and +1 , without any conditions.

[Ahzek451]

I didn't pay attention to the space marine and tyranid codex release, but does anyone think our imperial armor units receive either rule or points updates with this codex release?

[Karhedron]

32 minutes ago, Ahzek451 said:

I didn't pay attention to the space marine and tyranid codex release, but does anyone think our imperial armor units receive either rule or points updates with this codex release?

 

I am pretty sure that they don't.

[Lord_Ikka]

As a Skorpekh fan, I'm disappointed about the Annihilation detachment, but also not surprised. They were extremely powerful in 8th/9th, so they get a little timeout now (though their new version of Whirling Onslaught is actually pretty good). 

 

Wraiths are going to be a big thing, so that's...interesting. I've always viewed them as really annoyingly-hard to kill objective grabbers, and they are now going to be that plus have a Technomancer to buff them even more. Nice.

 

The downgrade to Warriors is annoying and probably too much given that they were hit with multiple reductions in efficiency, but expected. Big bricks were just too hard to kill with a Technomancer, Reanimator, and Lord/Overlord with Res Orb. The hits to them, including the baffling reduction in Gauss Reaper Strength, is definitely going to put Immortals back in the seat as the primary "troop" unit for Necrons now. 

 

Overall, the index detachment and the canoptek detachment both look pretty solid, the translocation one as well but it's not for me. I think if some of the units that got nerfed/sidegraded get decent points cuts (especially Warriors and Lychguard) then Necrons will remain a relatively good but not great tournament army, with a solid 48-55% win rate and getting the occasional win at smaller GTs. I don't think they are nearly as bad as some of the commentators have doom-saying, but they are going to have to have their players do some work to make up for an alright, but not brilliant codex. 

[Tyriks]

I really don't understand the nerf to Gauss Reapers.

[Karhedron]

19 minutes ago, Tyriks said:

I really don't understand the nerf to Gauss Reapers.

 

It is common for an edition to nerf the "new hotness" from a previous edition (Grav guns etc). 

[Tyriks]

4 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

It is common for an edition to nerf the "new hotness" from a previous edition (Grav guns etc). 

That's true. But it's not like this was anywhere near the situation with grav in 7th. I didn't play tournaments but no one around here even liked them. I only used them occasionally. The loss of range just makes them really unreliable on such a slow unit. Now even more so!

Edited November 30, 2023 by Tyriks
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