Thoughts: Necrons, Both Painting and Gaming

Hey guys,

So as you all know, the Necrons dropped this weekend, and there’s varying reports all over the internet of how they play, what lists are running around, and thoughts on the new models. Thanks to the new hobby store in Durango, I had a chance to play my friend with his slowly growing Necron army with my slowly growing Chaos Marine army.

First off, I must say, I love the new Necron models. My friend put the Command/Annihilation Barge together (in 5 hours, but who’s counting), but it looks great. Its also one of the few models I’ve noticed from Games Workshop that’s designed to make BOTH kits without magnets or clever cutting. They actually give you the big gun, the Lord Platform, and, hell, they give you a Plastic Necron Overlord! Speaking of which, I picked up the new Finecast Overlord to paint up and sell. Nice model, though a little work to get him cleaned up, and more air bubbles than I was hoping for.

The new Immortals/Deathmarks look nice too, glad to see that the clear rods disappeared with the new models and stayed with the Necron Warriors.

Alrighty, gaming. I know this is a little hard to decipher anything from, but we got an approx. 700 point game in, but I feel like its enough to get a true feel for how to slow the Necrons.

Nice Cityfight-Style board at the shop, can’t wait to see what roads really do.

My Chaos List was more of a fun style one, and consisted of:

• Chaos Sorcerer with Wings, Mark of Tzeentch, and Gift of Chaos.
• 10 Alpha Legion Marines with Chaos Glory, Meltagun, Flamer, and Champ with Power Weapon, in a Rhino with Combi-Melta.
• 8 Khorne Berserkers, including a Skull Champ with Fist.

I like to play WYSIWYG, so the strange wargear on some of them is a result of that. I’d been wanting to try out the Sorcerer, so I put him down in place of a Daemon Prince.

My friend’s Necrons were:

• Necron Overlord with Tachyon Arrow, Phylactery, Phase Shifter, Sempinternal Weave, Tesseract Labyrinth and a Warscythe.

I feel like I’m missing something, but this dude was almost 300 Points. He was attached to the Immortals.

• 12 Necron Warriors
• 5 Necron Immortals
• 4 Scarab Swarms
• Annihilation Barge with Gauss Cannon.

First off, I messed up and should have given the Zerkers the Rhino and attached the Sorceror. Oops.

Game was 4 Objectives and Spearhead.

I deploy. Zerkers are on my objective.

Necrons set up. My awesomeness forgot to grab a flying stand for the Barge.

A couple of Highlights.

• Warriors moved up too fast, allowing me to deploy from the Rhino and Rapid Fire and mess up the squad. I left one standing (I’ll hit on that later.)
• Scarabs hit the Rhino, dropped it to a 5-5-4, and Blew it up. Marines multi-assaulted the Scarabs and Warriors and messed them both up.
• Overlord and his boys moved up, ended up assaulting my Marines and the Sorcerer. Tesseract Labyrinth sent the Sorcerer back to the Stone Age, and thanks to that, my Marines fell off the board.
• Khorne Berserkers assaulted and blew up the Annihilation Barge, and rather than jump back on the objective, I wanted to see how Zerkers would faire. Damn Mindshackle Scarabs and my Skull Champ….

And here’s my thoughts on the army.

1. Necrons hate Rate of Fire. All you have to do is drop the squad and their Reanimation Protocols don’t work. I Don’t care if you have a 3++, Lasguns kill TH/SS termies, and they’ll kill you too.
2. Do NOT assault the Overlords. Things like the Tesseract Labyrinth and the Mindshackle Scarabs make you more dangerous to yourself than your opponent.
3. This is the first army to honestly ignore armour-ignoring weapons. A Necron will get up again whether a Lasgun or a Meltagun shot it. I see Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Heavy Bolters, and other high-rate weapons appearing to stop Necrons.
4. The book has a lot of interesting little toys to it. It easily matches the Wolves, BA, DE, and GK, and, honestly, the TYRANIDS. Yep, that’s right, the Tyranids. I honestly think that the Tyranids are the best bet against this army, especially the horde-style stuff. I may need to do a supplementary post on it, but I honestly think Tyranids have a chance again.

Alrighty, I’m off to get some Blood Angels painted. I’ve got a Dreadfleet commission coming up, along with some Tyranids and now a HUGE Grey Knights army for Magilla Gorilla over at Table Top War. Phew! I’m gonna be busy!

Granesh