Monday, March 23, 2009

Army at at glance.. Necrons

Hey everyone. Just thought I would do a little installment on Armies called Armies at a glance.

Basically giving a little fluff overview and gameplay overview. I am not going to go into detail on the entries or wargear really. I also will only touch upon the special rules hence at a glance. This installment is really about armies that get flak.

Alright so first on the block are the Necrons:

The faceless unfeeling undead machines. Once alive the Necrontyr made a pact with the C'tan (Star Gods) and become the Necrons. That's the in a nutshell blurb on there background. They are an ancient race with very advanced technology and the ability to travel great distances fast without the warp. There Gauss weaponry is the most efficient weaponry out there. The Necrons and the Eldar are bitter enemies although the Necrons will reap any and all life. If you want more on there fluff the codex and wiki sites will no doubt have more detailed information.

Gameplay wise the Necrons are an Earth style army. Very resiliant with the ability to get back up makes them hard to kill. Ther are a shooty army mostly because of the Gauss special rule. It lets any Gauss weaponry always glancing hit a vehicle on a 6. But what it also does that people forget is allow those weapons to wound any non vehicle unit on a roll of a 6 (normals saves allowed). This makes the weapons very efficient allowing any Gauss weapon to always be effective against any army.

Now being they are a legion of robotic zombies essentially they are static model wise. Meaning that in general they all have similar poses with not much to really make the army individualist (in general) aside from paint scheme. But this also lends to its charm as they are a legion of death so a very cookie cutter-esque look lends to that imposing inevitability.

Pros of the Necrons:
- Gets back up (same rules as feel no pain only during the beginning of your movement phase), Gauss weaponry always glance or wound on a 6. Disrupter fields allow CC attacks to always glance vehicles on a 6, A nearly indestructible vehicle the Monolith. A fast building and painting army. C'tan are tough as nails.

Cons:
-The phase out rule which makes the necron army vanish from the board if they get reduced to 25% or less models with the necron rule. This results in an auto loss, Low initiative for most units. If you get tied in CC with your warriors your going last but before powerfist weaponry, Kinda high priced units. No real reason to include some of the specialist units as they are either too points heavy or do not have the necron rule.

So that's a quick glance at the necrons. They are a strong army and forgiving. The wargear options for the Lord lend to lots of customization and combos. Until next time.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've always had an issue with the 'wounding on a 6' Gauss rule. It doesn't actually do anything. There are only two units in the game that can't be wounded by Strength 4 weapons, and those are the C'tan.
Basically, all the Necron weapons would be capable of wounding any target even without Gauss.

James said...

True enough. but it also makes sense that the Necrontyr would have weapons capable of damaging there greatest tech. Also dont forget the wraithlord heh.

The added "comfort" of your codex telling you to essentially just shoot it and see what happens also lends to the player remembering to shoot at the high toughness things that normal str 4 can wound but sometime people just do not try.

It was more valid with the older codices so perhaps theyll give it something different in the new codex.

AoM said...

Lots of customization and combos for the Lord? really?

Why would you ever take anything besides the Res Orb and Veil?

Anonymous said...

Well because it is fun firstly. Also it depends on what you do. I've seen a destroyer lord kitted for assault lead scarabs. It was effective. Its not just about the power game. Also you can have two lords in an army and some gear is one per army.

Helios Raven said...

My personal Fav Wargear set up for a Lord is Res Orb, Phase Shifter, Phylactery, and Gaze of Flame. This makes him a beast in Close Combat, and a great protector of any objective in a capture control or seize ground mission

Anonymous said...

"dont forget the wraithlord heh."
Lol, true enough. I can't believe I missed that unit, considering I own one :D

James said...

Its all good. It is true that the wounding on 6 rule is pretty much for str 4 weapons and str 5 for apoc games. It would be nice if it had something more universally for all the gauss but any bonus is nice.