So, it's almost been a year since the Necron list was released in Raiders.

Other than some people's complaints about the Pylon, have there been any other glaring problems in the list?  Haven't seen a lot of games with the Necrons lately... where are they all hiding?

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"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

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Well, I was waiting (impatiently) for the Necron review to begin, but now that you're asking...  

There's been some talk of Necrons on the epic_fr forum lately. Most people think that the list is still too strong and needs some changing. Personally, I just think it's "different" and that it takes some time to adjust, both for the Necron player and for his opponent... but I agree that not everything is perfect and that the list could do with an update.

ARMY LIST

2 support formations per core formation should be more than enough. I believe it's the norm in most armies and 3 per core is just not restrictive enough.

VARIABLE STRATEGY

This really needs to go. It feels wrong no matter which way you look at it. It makes C'tan compulsory (in a competitive list anyway) and it's totally unfair for the opponent, since the Necron player can keep his C'tan off-board and still get the strategy bonus.

It's simple, really : with a C'tan, all Necron formations are made MUCH stronger simply because you have a real chance at winning the strategy roll ; without a C'tan, the army is still strong but at least the mass-teleportation is compensated by a low SR. No other army has this, and for good reason. With SR 3, Necrons formations should at least cost 25 more points EACH.

Necrons shouldn't be able to teleport en masse AND win the strategy roll regularly against anyone but Marines. It's just too strong.

This is the one thins everybody on the epic_fr agrees upon : a fixed Strategy Rating of 2 would be much better. Even a fixed SR of 1 would be preferable to the variable strategy rule.

DECEIVER

Even with the boost to the Nightbringer, the Deceiver is still stronger. 6PB Disrupt is OTT. Going down to 4PB would be a good start. Removing the Deceiver's TK attacks might help too : we'd have one C'tan realy good at crunching things and the other one better at shooting things from afar.

PYLON

Again, everybody agrees that 120cm is too much. The Pylon can teleport anywhere, it doesn't need such a long range. Some people are in favour of reducing the range to 60 cm ; I'd rather have it at 75cm, that's more than enough IMO.

Also, the AA attack is reaaaaally strong : perhaps TK(1) on the AA attack only (and still TK(D3) on the normal attack)?

OBELISKS

Why did the Obelisks go from 50 pts apiece to 35 pts (as an upgrade only, but still)?

For 35 pts, you get a 45cm AP4+/AT4+ shot on an AV with 5+RA, Fearless, Skimmer, Teleport and Thick Rear Armour.      

50 pts as an upgrade is a minimum. And the Obelisk Phalanx is too cheap as well, it should probably cost around 350 points for 6 Obelisks.

MONOLITHS

Several players on epic_fr are in favor of getting rid of solo Monolith and create a base formation consisting of 1 Monolith + 2 Obelisks on order to avoid the dreaded "popcorn" effect.

I think we should implement the other changes and then check whether this change is really needed, but I'm not opposed to it in theory.

WARBARQUE

Well, it looks like everybody (on epic_fr anyway) dislikes the Warbarque.

It doesn't really have a well-defined role, it's just a big Monolith who gets to be the Supreme Commander from time to time. Most people are in favour of simply dumping it. This is probably what will happen when the F-ERC gets to its own Necron review (next september), but since it's there I'd rather try and find a role for it.

First, get rid of its many weapons, Necrons shouldn't be shooty. Also get rid of the Supreme Commander option (see below for suggestion). Then give it +1 DC, another Gauss Flux Arc... and 2 portals!

Warbarque

Type -- WE
Speed -- 20cm
Armour -- 4+
CC -- 6+
FF -- 4+

Weapons

2x Gauss Flux Arc/(15cm)/Small Arms/Extra Attacks (+2)

Notes

Damage Capacity 4
Commander, Fearless, Skimmer, Teleport, TRA, 2x Portal (the Warbarque has TWO portals), May not phase out.

Firstly, I have played against Necrons only once (with Biel Tan) and my opponent was quite inexperienced (it was his first game with Necrons, too), so take this with a grain of salt.

Variable Strategy Raiting
I have to totally agree with Hojyn on this one: The very first thing I would change with the list, is to drop this special rule and set the army's strategy rating to 2. I hate it when an army has an army specific special rule that only affects one model - here it is the C'tan, with the Tau it was the Supreme Commander. Luckily, they got rid of the latter.
Plus, the removal of this rule lessens the importance of the C'tan and brings the whole list a bit closer to balance. If strategy 2 is still too good, drop it to 1, but I doubt it. In the game I had, my opponent played a Deceiver (so his strategy rating was 3) and I did not had that much of a problem with the list.

Army List
I am OK with 2 support per core formation, IF the Pylon leaves that section (of course, it would still fall under the 1/3 War Engine restriction). In my opinion, having a formation that is subject to two (or more) different army list restrictions is quite inelegant.

Pylon
120 cm range seems definitely wrong. I would have proposed a drop to 90 cm, though. Alas, I never played with air craft against Necrons...

Supreme Commander & Warbarque
I would leave it on the C'Tan or on the Warbarque. And while I am with Hojyn in regard of the Warbarque having too many weapons, I think 2xPortal feels really weird. I would drop some weapons and reduce its cost to 250 points, so that you can take a Small Harvester Engine together with a Large one.

The same guys around here that were breaking the Nid list way back when are convinced that the Necrons are just about as bad.  I'll see if I can get an overview from one of them, but as I recall from talking to them the primary culprit was a combo of Monolith teleport/Destroyer shoot-support (or Obelisks?)/Phalanx assault.  They played 3 or 4 games back during the holidays and none of them went longer than 3 turns.  The Necrons totally dominated all the games and in one the entire opposing army was wiped out on turn 2.

I didn't bring it up because I was trying to keep focus on the projects under way at that point.

Variable strategy - Agree with Hojyn.  The difference between SR1 and 3 is HUGE when you have a horde of teleporters.  It's a total no-brainer.

C'Tan - The suicide bomber bit needs to go.

Pylons - Those same guys found the Pylons very heavy, but at least one game was against Minervans where the TKd3 hammered the snot out of them.

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Neal

Wow, a lot of negatives.  I wasn't expecting that.

To answer the first question, our group played three Necron games recently.  One I just haven't gotten around to posting the batrep yet (tough to movitate yourself when it isn't your game) and the other we didn't have a camera and just couldn't be bothered with a writeup.

Results were as follows:
Necrons vs. Minvervans = Necrons won by less than a hundred points
Necrons vs. Space Marines = Necrons won by 190 points
Necrons vs. Tau 5.1 = Necron lost big time (I wasn't there but I understand the loss was supposedly pretty staggering)

Both these games were dreadfully close and the Necrons couldn't pull it together to take the objectives in either case.  The Space Marines in the second game were an All-Drop army against the Necrons, so the fact that they survived at all was a surprise (wasted Deathwind shots and OB), let alone such a close game.  The whole thing was a blood bath.

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Onto the reviews, I'll try just post my experiences rather than respond to the complaints so others can get their views in as well.  I'll respond in time and get Corey over here too.

To give you some background we have two Necron players (myself and mnb) and the army has gotten regular usage.  We usually play blind games (nobody knows what the other person is bringing).

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The variable SR really hasn't been an issue here in our group.  I can't say much about it other than it keeps you from taking an Abbatoir or Aeonic Orb in a standard 3000 point game.  This is an annoyance but it was a calculated one on Corey's part.  

The Wraiths haven't been played much, only because we tend to avoid using proxies.  When fieled, they've been used in 6's and I've seen them work adequately, if not underwhelmingly so.

Pylons have spent a lot of their time broken.  Even when three are fielded they are typically hammered early on.  Only when the Space Marines are on the board have we seen their distinctive advantage (Thunderhawks and Landing Craft).  Other than that they usually sit there and scare people into breaking them.  It is a tough balance since the Necron player has no other AA and as such feels obligated to play the model on the board, but I would honestly leave it behind if I knew my opponent had no aircraft. It's a coin toss of a hit and no maneuvering means you're stuck where your at.  I can see this unit being a problem if you play on a generally flat board with sparse terrain.  We use hills and buildings regularly and 120cm does nothing for you when your opponent is concealed.

C'tan bombs - we've never seen this happen (except to our own troops ).  Call it luck of the draw I suppose.

Warbarque - it is a nice unit! It is rather dull compared to the other pieces but I like it and so do the other players.  It never has generated a complaint.  Not too powerful, priced appropriately, and the weapons range give you something different to work with. If I could describe it I would call it 'vanilla'.

(As a small note, Corey designed the pricing on the Warbarque specifically so you couldn't bring one with a larger Harvester engine in a 3000 point game - this was done to limit the army's accessibility to the powerful war engines.  Love it or hate it this was intentional).

Abbatoir - I play it frequently and love it.  Mnb just played it for the first time last week and the Necrons pulled out a win (bear in mind there was no C'tan so that was with a SR1 too).  The unit hasn't changed all that much over the years and I'm always shocked when I hear people saying they think it is useless (of course some people say the same thing about the Eldar Warlock titan ).  
(Funny enough we had a game where Studderingdave's Warlock Titan and my Abbatoir went head-to-head and the Warlock won by 2.  In case anyone is wondering how such a match up would pan out).

Popcorn armies - I defer to Chroma's battery of testing on this.  I was on the receiving end of a popcorn army fielded by ePilgrim and lost the furst game and won handily on the second.

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It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

i'm glad this conversation is under way. 1st off i would agree w/ the SR of 2. only because then it gives players the same flexability in using either the c'tan or the harvesters. one more comment on the overall army. it was said earlier that some of the units (obelisk) are under priced. agreed that when compared side by side against an ork 35 pnt tank the obelisk is the  clear favorite. but when you figure in all the negatives w/ being off board i think it's an equal trade.

deciever- no problem w/ the points but i don't think it reflects what this guy is supposed to do. i read all the initial posts duing the  creation of the list, while there were some definate good ones i have the feeling if they weren't used then they wouldn't be now. i would agree w/ the "disrupt only" for him. it would show that rather then being a shooty unit he is doing something scarey or .... disruptive to a particular area.

wraiths- would agree w/ the underwhelming comment by moscovian. perhaps an extra attack.

how do you guys make these huge entries, i keep getting cut off. anyway...

abbatoir- i was proved wrong on this guy. i absolutely love this unit, what other piece in the game can you only pay for what you want w/ nothing extra. it is devastating in CC. of course i only used it against a SM drop army so i didn't have to go all the way across the board. if the SR is changed to 2 i think this unit would get a lot more play.

pylons- i cannot understand how so many people hate this thing. it is a HUGE bullseye. as stated before, you feel obligated to take one for the AA. everyone knows it's the only one you've got and it gets shot to pieces very early. no offense but are these comments being made by looking at them on paper or by playing against them. if anything i would say an extra DC so it has a little more staying power.

warbarque- i am surprised that some people do not like this unit. while it does seem a bit shooty for a necron unit, this is what makes them unique. it gives you a reason for taking it. if you really had to change anything give it an AA gun so i wouldn't have to take the pylon. although the 2 portal idea is interesting.

nightbringer- i've never played him. as much as i love to play CC oriented formations, there are just so many others in this list that he gets overlooked. he does have decent stats though and wouldn't be surprised if i get proved wrong again.

overall i don't think this list needs radical changes just the few tweeks mentioned.

Here's my thoughts from extensive playtesting of the Necron list. Overall it's a much more balanced force than it used to be, but there are some issues still.

Variable Strategy Rating. Lose it. It discourages ever taking a Harvester, it's not that fluffy (they're robots), and it can be quite unbalancing with a teleporty portal horde. I have extensively tested them at SR 1 and it felt about right.

Pylons. The problem is that a single pylon is rubbish, but two or more are overpowered. Taking one pylon is worthless, because at 2 DC it generally spends the whole game broken. Two pylons are overpowered, because they dominate AA, and one can usually teleport somewhere safe from being shot.

I'd probably recommend dropping the AA shot to AA5+ TK(1), but dropping to 150 points to make taking 2 viable yet not overpowering. Definitely drop the range to 90cm.

C'tan Bomb. This really needs to go. This has spoiled several games I've played by wiping out several formations at a time. Every time I get the c'tan in CC I'm hoping the enemy rolls a critical, and that's just wrong. The "bomb" is the only thing I ever use c'tan for, seriously. Change the critical to make it much less powerful.

The Deciever needs toning down too. BP4 would be plenty.

Obelisks. 35 points may be too cheap as an upgrade, but more worrying is the core Obelisk formation, which makes it possible to make an army list containing nothing but fearless, teleporting skimmers, which i don't think should be possible.

Phalanx. The basic warrior phalanx seems too cheap, which allows the popcorn Warriors + Monoliths list. Raise to 250?

Wraiths. Not really worth taking in their current form. I liked them as an upgrade rather than their own formation, and an Extra Attack seems pretty essential, maybe at CC4+?

Monoliths. I'm still in favour of portals not working when broken to make it more of a tactical challenge for the necron player.

Abbatoir. I occasionally take it for fun, but it's definately underwhelming compared to the Orb, and given that Harvesters are underwhelming compared to a supreme commander anyway, I think it needs to be cheaper.

I've found the Warbarque OK, it's a mostly AT platform which offers something different from most other units. It is a little flavourless though.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

another couple of comments
i saw on the IG a thread that said you (the group behind raiders) were wanting a 1 page FAQ to update the book. is this true, if so that might have some bearing on this conversation.
zombocom brought up another good point i had forgotten to mention earlier, the c'tan bomb. while this might work if we were trying to come up w/ stats for the weirdboy towers, it doesn't fit here. who wants to play a piece hoping it will die?
as far as the armored phalanx, is this really that bad? in the IG list you could take 40 leman russ tanks. besides has anyone ever done this? i've seen it mentioned but never tested. if it would be that devastating someone would of done it by now.

40 leman russ would mean having probably 5-6 activations max, whereas 8 obelisk formations + a pylon + a c'tan is 2900 points and 10 activations. Not to mention the phase-out/teleport/fearless combination makes them very difficult to shift.

It's at least worth a Chroma style "An Overload of Obelisks" playtest to see if my fears are unfounded.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

but does playing an army like this make it broken? i mean it's fun to win and all but playing an army like this is beyond vanilla, this would be like flavorless yogurt.

For sure, but it is a concern if the list wants to become accepted at tournaments. Take the "5 Aces" list for the Tau for example, where TRC proved that maxing out on AX-1-0's was broken, and so changes were made.

Of course the counter-argument is that there are some silly lists allowed in the official armies, such as 13 Thunderhawks + a landing craft.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

I am going to make a call here and anyone posting to this forum can do it:

Let's see some VASSAL games.  Use the Count As chart in the back of Raiders.  Corey and I will want to see batreps batreps batreps.  A VASSAL game would be easy enough to do for these min-max types and it will provide some general assistance.

VASSAL games are not the end-all be all.  They have drawbacks such as flat boards (no terrain elevation changes such as hills) but they can allow anyone with a decent computer to field any army composition.  This combined with some real army playtesting will be key.

There are a lot of good points made out here and some other things where I am just raising my eyebrows wondering how (fill in the blank) is even remotely a problem.  I'm not going to get into it though and put people on the spot.  If you have an opinion, get a game in and post it.

Playtesting with the rules as they are is the most helpful because it illustrates where these problems (real and perceived) lie.  I understand there will be a desire to play with modified rules because you already "know" that a unit / formation / special rule is broken.  Bad move.  However, alternate reality playtesting is fine.  

Let me explain: you are playtesting a game with the Necrons and a 'Ctan bomb' goes off, wiping out five Leman Russ tanks. You then go back to that combat point, adjust it with whatever critical you were thinking would be more appropriate, and move forward again.  One batrep, two endings.  This is difficult to do in a real game - easy to do in VASSAL.

(I am actually going to see what I can do about getting the Necrons (and others) on VASSAL.  I have a lot of graphics left over from Gribbly Horde for the Dark Eldar and those were designed for VASSAL.  There are some for the Necrons as well.  No promises but I will start making contacts.)

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.