Sezeras & Friends WIP

[Bonzi]

Well, got the new codex today along with various new models and got my first game in with the new dex. We have been playing a Crusade and at 25PL I was running anything crazy or new so first impressions are minimal but here's what I've seen so far.

 

#1. RP is more useful than it was by far but it does have some noted failings on multiwound models. I saved five of ten warriors more than I would have under the old system. With old RP I would have gotten to make zero rolls this game because all my warriors would have been wiped out in one round. My Skorpeth all got wiped out in one round vs a Bloodthirster so they got to make zero RP roll regardless of old or new rules so that's a wash.

 

#2. Our doctrines equivalent is very situational and requires more thought than I put into it today. Vs Daemons I don't know why I even used what I used. I got +1" movement out of the first turn and got 2 wounds back from living metal in the third turn, but everything else was either pointless or my one HQ was dead and I couldn't use the protocols anymore.

 

#3. Dynasty traits are far better than they were and I'm happy.

 

#4. The Crusade rules in the new dex are a hidden gem that nobody is really talking about. I really like the fun and flavor they added to a Necron army on Crusade. Really positive part of the dex.

 

#5. I like the new version of Quantum Shielding better. It doesn't protect from spike damage as well as the old, but I was tracking what the new rules saved me at between ignoring all the 2s and 3s that would have wounded, and the better armor save backed by an invuln I saved a lot more damage than the old rules would have.

Edited October 11, 2020 by Bonzi

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Crusade is what I’m most looking forward to for 9th, so I’m excited to hear that the crusade rules are looking pretty good! Waiting for my order to ship sadly so I have some time before I get to mess around with them.

[Bonzi]

I got another PL50 Crusade game in this week vs my friends Salamanders. There's a lot I'm still processing about this game but my initial thoughts are this. I still like the new dex and there's a lot to like but the following is going to be heavy on the whine and negativity.

 

#1. I won the game but I was trying and my friend was running a goof off rando list. It was...disheartening to play against the new marine dex. There we so many moments of direct comparison where my whole army felt lackluster by comparison. The disparity in point cost and value was stark and painful and even though I won I walked away feeling bad about my army.

 

2. New Reanimation is better than before but it's still...weak in total. In general my units are still getting completely wiped which is shutting down Reanimation. The rule kept 4 warriors on the table that wouldn't have otherwise lasted a whole round. In the entire game that's what I saved with Reanimation and I was rolling within averages...4 warriors (52? points).

 

3. Skorpeth Destroyers, love the models but in the last six games I played with them they have made it to combat and killed something three times. They get obliterated off the board in a single round in most games. They're fun but they just don't cut it (I don't run a melee dynasty so some of this is my fault/poor list synergy. They're too expensive and the Plasmacyt unit is really badly done in the new dex.

 

4. As in the last edition, Quantum Shielding is the wall we can put our backs to. It's the one ability we have that doesn't come with bizarre limitations or inherent weaknesses. Before the new dex dropped I was running QS heavy lists and I think I'm going back to it more or less. QS + 1 wound core units is where I see Necrons actually working.

 

5. The Doomstalker is a solid performer for it's price tags AND, in my opinion brings enough value on its own that you shouldn't feel like you have to bring them in groups and huddle around a node for +1 bs. They're cheap, durable and deadly all by themselves.

 

6. I want to try an army with a Canoptek backbone. I think they will perform far better than their Destroyer counterparts.

 

7. I'm coming to the conclusion that our command protocols are trash in general and outside of a few builds or armies you really shouldn't build around them. Most of the bonuses are too situational or minor to justify all the limitations that GW has tacked onto them. +1 to movement and undying legion have the biggest value so far because regardless of the turn it's always useful to have those buffs on. The rest it's impossible to guess when you'll need them and if you'll have the units and HQs in place to take advantage of them. If we could pick in the turn they could be strong. As it is now it's just book keeping I don't want to do. My take is don't feel bad if you don't bring a noble to get these.

 

Conclusion to this whinefest is I'm putting Destroyers and their like on a shelf, I'm going to lean into canoptek, QS, and 1 wound core in my future lists.

[Miek]

I haven't played yet (confinement), but I got pretty much the same impression. QS + 1W core units is what I'm leaning towards. Command protocols are "nice to haves" that I choose last and adapt prior to the game, but I think players will often mix dynasties and sacrifice them in competitive play. And that's fine I guess, they're mostly fluff in my mind.

 

I read/interpreted in a goonhammer article that scarabs backed by Chronos, objsec and the 6" move traits are probably going to a mainstream strategy for crons in this edition, probably backed by strong long range stuff in your zone. That's one of the things I was considering, but I don't play competitively (and don't want to). Rad wreathed is cooler :)

 

It's early to say but a canoptek army theme looks stronger to me than a destroyer's.

[Bonzi]

I finally played a real 2K game with Necrons vs Salamanders today. Made a new list based around Canoptek, Quantum Shielding, and some one wound core.

 

My Mephrit list:

 

Command Barge: gauss cannon, voltaic staff, Mephrit warlord

Technomancer: canoptek cloak, phylacterine hive

x2 Cryptothralls

Royal Warden: conduit of the stars

 

X10 Warriors: Reapers

-Ghost Ark

X5 Immortals: gauss

X5 Immortals: gauss

 

X5 Deathmarks

X3 Tomb Spiders: x6 particle blasters, x1 prisim, x1 fab claw

Triarch Stalker: heavy gauss

Triarch Stalker: heat ray

 

X4 Wraiths: claws

X4 Scarabs

X4 Scarabs

 

Doomsday Ark

Doomstalker

 

I won by a decent margin but I think the game would have been a tight win / draw / close loss if my friends dice hadn't absolutely destroyed him in the first rounds.

 

Thoughts:

 

#1. Necrons feel a lot better on points vs space marines than they do on power level. It was a lot less disheartening.

 

#2. Our doctrines are hot garbage. They're useful if you're playing melee but it's a lot of book keeping and restrictions that just aren't worth working around. Using these things feels like a layer of complexity that adds no benefit or tactical depth.

+1 movement and undying legion, after that I'm not sure it really matters.

 

#3. I'm so glad I ditched the Skorpeth units. The canoptek units performed better and were far more durable. The Wraiths lasted through firepower that would have wiped Skorpeth off the board.

 

#4. I love the Canoptek Spiders. They were both far more durable and a lot less dangerous than I thought they would be, as odd as that sounds. I pushed a flank with them and they eventually killed a Sicaran and three Invaders + a handful of infantry. 36 shots at range and 15 attacks in close combat is so good for their cost, even if they were only hitting on a 4+. They also rezzed 3 scarab bases and fixed about 5 wounds on vehicles.

 

#5. Deathmarks were another great unit. They weren't game changing by themselves, but they were good for weakening characters and finishing units.

 

#6. Quantum Shielding is the best thing we got out of our new dex, hands down. Crons are one of the few armies that can still put vehicles on the board in the face of the new melta hotness that Marines are packing.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Congratulations on your victory. Thank you for the hard-earned lessons.

[Bonzi]

Good lord, I can't believe it's been October since I last got a big throwdown with my Necrons. Unprecedented times, holidays, work blah blah blah...still can't believe it's been so long. Anyway my friend and I reached a boiling point on getting in a game of 40K today. I wanted to play my Crons more and he had a brand new pandemic Mechanicus army he had collected but hadn't been able to play so I thought I would add to the old WIP/Battle Report Thread.

 

We played 2K no man's land.

 

My list was an evolution of the last list I played. I was disgusted with our Necron doctrines so I wanted to go all in on making them work/feel relevant to see if I just wasn't giving them a fair go. I switched dynasty to Sezerakhan and I ran their warlord trait + sovereign coronal relic to max out the use of doctrines. I leaned into Canoptek & Core units as well.

 

CCB: sovereign coronal, staff of light, gauss cannon

-Enduring Will

Illuminator Sezeras

Technomancer: phylactrine hive, voltaic staff,

-Sezerakhan wl trait

 

10 Reaper Warriors

-Ghost Ark

5 Immortals

5 Immortals

 

10 Deathmark

X3 Tomb Spiders: x6 particle blasters, x1 claw, x1 gloom

X2 Cryptothralls

 

X3 Wraiths

X6 Scarabs

X1 Canoptek Tomb Sentinel

 

Doomstalker

X3 Locust Destroyers, x1 Heavy Locust (gauss)

 

I won't go into big detail about his list. It had three great buffing heroes, two hover tanks, two dune crawlers, x3 chicken walkers, and five Katephron shooting robots. He called the game at the end of turn 3 when it was obvious I was in a position to win out the game on points and he wouldn't be able to catch up before the game ended. This was his first game with this army so it was a big learning curve for him which likely had a big impact on my winning.

 

I can say with confidence now that I'm done chasing our doctrine bonuses. Even with all the resources and effort I put towards using them, they had very little impact on the game. If they didn't have so many levels of restriction they might be something but needing a noble, needing character proximity, and needing to pick an order before battle...it's too much. Take one of those limits away and maybe it's worth it, but not now.

 

Beyond that I am in a much better frame of mind on Necrons as a whole. I'm getting a better feel of how the army plays very strongly to objectives more so than flat out murder and as a result it's been more enjoyable to play. I have a renewed drive to continue building and painting this army.

 

The dead weight of this list was the CCB, the Deathmarks, and the regular Locust Destroyers. I could have and should have dropped those units for others. The Tomb Sentinel and the Heavy Locust in particular exceeded the expectation I had for them. Reaper Warriors were the MVP as they dished out damage and proved incredibly durable on the center objective (the Ark & Sezeras had to rez about 9 of them over two turns and they got improved to BS 2+). I was very happy with the Sezerakhan dynasty rules. The reroll wound was clutch on the units with big guns and I saved a lot of mortal wounds (monsters and vehicles were exploding everywhere & Mechanicus can kick out a lot of mortals as well)

[Bonzi]

The first and last model I build with this many legs. Did the entire thing sub assembly and painted. It was painful.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Bonzi

[Miek]

At least it looks great, I love the pose and its overall look. Is that a gloom prism on its back? Did you magnetize it (if so, was it hard to magnetize)?

[Bonzi]

At least it looks great, I love the pose and its overall look. Is that a gloom prism on its back? Did you magnetize it (if so, was it hard to magnetize)?

Yes, both the sentinel and the stalker variants come with a default gloom prism built into their profile.

 

I think it would be quite easy to magnetize a pair of gauss blasters on the neck so it could be used as the Tomb Sentinel or the Tomb Stalker. In my own gaming group we are less picky about exact details of models (are they bolt rifles or assault bolters, you just point and declare). Not all gaming groups are as lax.

[INKS]

looks pretty cool

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Good job.

[Bonzi]

Completed Void Dragon. Pretty happy with how this came out. A good mix of a quick uncomplicated paint job that went fairly fast with a decent outcome. I just bought the silent king yesterday so that's the next big project. I may work on basing for a while just for the change of pace.

[Dread]

Fan-freakin-tastic!!! It turned out absolutely boss. Great color choices. Fits well with the rest of your army.

[Trollbeard]

What is your recipe for the black flesh?? Looks so good!

[Mr4Minutes]

Great looking paint job.

 

I finished my Void Dragon over a month ago and still haven’t used him in a game...

[Captain Coolpants]

Looks to me like its just black contrast paint over a light primer? I could be wrong though. Im usually wrong aha

[Bonzi]

What is your recipe for the black flesh?? Looks so good!

Captain Cool pants is correct. The black flesh is just black contrast paint over wraith bone. It's turns out that nice all on its own. I had debated a dry brush on the flesh but decided I'd probably ruin what was working so well if I over did the effect.

 

A lot of this paint job is mostly using the strengths of contrast paint with just a couple extra techniques. The orange parts have been dry brushed with a yellow paint. The blue areas have been wet line edged with a light blue airbrush paint. The grey stone has been dry brushed. The digital areas of the body are a wetblend of contrast paints (yellow, orange, and black) applied very quickly. The main body area was painted in about 30 minutes as I had to paint super quick for the wetblend to work.

 

The entire model was subassembly painted in 5 separate pieces.

Edited March 9, 2021 by Bonzi

[Captain Coolpants]

Ohhh look at me getting something correct for once!

 

But looks nice. My favourite bit is the red/orange on the digital areas. Really pops on the black body.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Impressive work.

[Bonzi]

I will say that I got a game in against the new Death Guard today and I brought the Void Dragon because he turned out so good and I wanted him on the table and he did not disappoint.

 

He did 6 mortal wounds with voltaic storm vs a plauge drone lawnmower then the next turn did 6 mortal wounds with voltaic storm to the other plague drone. He killed a number of poxwalkers and plague marines with the falling stars and then he murdered a Lord of Corruption with his spear. It was an impressive showing. Unfortunately we had to cut the game short so I didn't get to see what he would do next, but there were some Plagueburst Crawlers with his name on them next.

[Bonzi]

Here's the pandemic painting total at this point. I'm shifting to other projects so I wanted a picture of how far the army has come in around a year and a half (I'm not a fast painter). This is roughly 4100 points and maybe just short of half my total Necron collection.

Not all of them are fully based and some are not dry brushed completely but they are all what I would call table top ready.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Bonzi

[Mr4Minutes]

Great work. Love the way they colour pops.

[Miek]

This is so cool, I hope you'll get to field them soon!

[Dread]

SPADOINKEL! The army pics are great.