Recommended Necron Units for 9th Ed

[firestorm40k]

Hello :) for some reason in coming months ;) :lol: there may be a few more people who are starting Necron armies. For newcomers to the re-awakening Dynasties, what are the main staple units that seasoned Overlords and Crypteks field against the lesser organic races of the galaxy? Thanks in advance! :)

[Stupidity]

Most are dynasty specific. I hear these few are good for everyone

Units: Warriors. Ghost Ark. Scarabs. DoomStalkers. Triarch Stalker. Lychguard and Wraiths.

Characters: Overlord. Chrono/Technomancers and CCB. Oh and Silent King

Edited March 4, 2021 by Stupidity

[Bonzi]

#1 Warriors (reapers or flayers depends on dynasty, but these guys are the heart of any solid list).

 

#2. Chronomancers. These guys are the best of the Crypteks. Technomancers come in a close second.

 

#3. Catacomb Command Barge for the HQ. More expensive but you gain soo much more for the points.

 

Past that it's list and dynasty dependent. Honestly the shorter list is what units are bad or underperforming.

 

Monoliths are poor. Too many points, too many CP, too expensive to get your dynasty bonus on them and finally, too $$$$.

 

Deathmark Destroyer is super cool, but he's an assassin who is bad vs characters and is only good vs horde. For his points cost we have other units that are better.

 

Reanimator is still too expensive because it's waaaaay to easy to kill.

 

Obelisk has never been good, still isn't good, will apparently never be good.

[Karhedron]

Both Lockhust and Skorpekh Destroyers are great for laying the hurt on your opponent depending on whether you like shooty or choppy. Not so sure about Ophidians though.

 

Canoptek Wraiths are good too with a good combination of speed, durability and hitting power.

[dice4thedicegod]

The nightbringer has fallen off the list now?

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

The named C'tan are still on the 'list', dice4thedicegod, but as Bonzi said, the list of what isn't good is shorter.

[01RTB01]

I'm looking forward to pairing up Ophydians, wraiths and flayed ones blobs...

 

Solid core of warriors bumbling behind.

[Get Thokt]

HQ: Overlord, Catacomb Command Barge, Sient King, Technomancer, Chronomancer

 

Troops: Warriors

 

Elite: Skorpekh Destroyers, Lychguard, Nightbringer C'tan

 

Fast Attack: Scarabs, Wraiths, Praetorians

 

Heavy Support: Canoptek Doomstalker

 

Other recommendations: Flayed Ones, Immortals, Ophydian Destroyers, Canoptek Sypders, Void Dragon C'tan

[Mandragola]

I’m starting out with Necrons myself, with an army based around 60 warriors and 12 skorpekhs that I’ve managed to get hold of relatively cheaply. Haven’t played yet though.

 

I found this (long!) goonhammer article great: https://www.goonhammer.com/start-competing-necrons-tactics/#Psychomancer

 

Not sure why the Psychomancer’s name comes up in that link. However as they say in the article, it looks to me like a potentially great unit in 9th, due to the way it can ruin actions and remove obsec. It’s clearly nowhere near as much of a workhorse as the awesome Chronomancer but I think it could do serious work.

 

I wouldn’t count out the reanimateor either. It looks much improved by the reanimating prioritisation strat that lets you use it reactively. Park it behind obscuring terrain and it should be able to do good work. I do agree the price still seems high though.

 

I’ve got three now (only one built) and definitely won’t use them all together. At least one is going to be sacrificed for bitz. I’ve got a vague plan to try and build a CCB from bits of it and a Wraith, with the Overlord riding on top. Then I’ll have a unit of 5 wraiths, which seems like the right number to avoid maxing out plasmaceptors.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Mandragola

[Miek]

Thanks Mandagrola, I think your reference should go into the unit of the week: psychomancer; it bring interesting thoughts about disrupting armies which are really hard to kill, ex.: Death guard.

 

For the main topic, I think people could choose from units mentioned by more than one person. My limited pick would be:

 

CCB, technomancer, chronomancer, warriors, immortal (a must for low points games, which is key for new players), Scarabs.

 

Then you need melee stuff, but there are several great options (which are mentioned above). A few in a shooty list, more in a melee list.

 

Then you need anti tank (beyond 500 points, although it might not hurt at 500 points either). Great options have been listed, my go-to are the TS and the Tesseract ark for their versatility.

 

I think any list beyond 500 points needs (or at least would greatly benefit from) some deepstrike, unless it depends on a night scythe to compensate. It's so useful for scoring secondary objectives. My pick is 5 flayed one (perform actions); deathmarks can't shoot when doing an action, and their shooting sucks anyways. The hexmark has its own advantages; being a single base and a character, I'm sure someone could make a case for it being better than the flayed ones, even for performing actions.

[Mr4Minutes]

I think flayed ones are the best DS action monkeys Necrons have. Cheap and are still on 28mm bases(I believe).

 

The Hexmark being a character really limits what actions it can perform. Such as Scramblers. Maybe for engage in all fronts to drop in and hide?

 

The psychomancer is an interesting model. But for me it’s major drawback is it’s action deny/fight last etc. goes off in your morale phase. I just feel that it’s a little to limiting for a positional dependent ability.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Mr4Minutes

[Mandragola]

I think flayed ones are the best DS action monkeys Necrons have. Cheap and are still on 28mm bases(I believe).

 

The Hexmark being a character really limits what actions it can perform. Such as Scramblers. Maybe for engage in all fronts to drop in and hide?

 

The psychomancer is an interesting model. But for me it’s major drawback is it’s action deny/fight last etc. goes off in your morale phase. I just feel that it’s a little to limiting for a positional dependent ability.

I think I prefer deathmarks for deep striking. They're really flexible and if they aren't required to deep strike then you can have them shoot people's characters up. They look like a very handy unit to have in an army. Combined with things like a Psychomancer and maybe a C'tan chucking mortal wounds around, you'd be pretty good at taking out people's characters.

 

I've a feeling that deathmarks might be a bit of a "sleeper hit" of a unit. They're only 1 point more per model than immortals and I think they've got a lot of utility. They can sit happily on back field objectives, deep strike to do actions, snipe characters, and they have a pretty respectable amount of raw firepower for their cost. That's a lot of utility. They're also Core, which unlocks a few other abilities for them.

 

I don't like the hexmark much, but they might sneak into lists. The main thing that's interesting about it is that it's a character that isn't an HQ, and which can deep strike. So you can use it to bring command protocols to any of your own units that might be deep striking, like those deathmarks. You could also potentially give it the gauntlet of the conflagrator (on its seventh arm?) if you felt like it, though that'll rarely be all that good in a MSU-heavy meta.

 

The timing of the Psychomancer's ability is definitely an issue for its "fight last" function. It looks like they've made it happen at that time for fluff reasons. In fairness it could still be useful against enemies that are about to charge. But actually I don't think this is really what you'll have it do most of the time anyway - you'll mostly want to remove obsec from things or break actions - and so I don't think it's a deal-breaker.

 

Looking at flayed ones again, I actually like the idea of a unit of 20, running up the board. They're a unit that starts off relatively mediocre (a warrior with no gun that isn't Core or obsec) but which takes buffs really well. They're the only unit in the codex that can use the fight twice stratagem and you can also give the enemy -1 to hit them. In a dynasty using the Eternal Conquerors + Relentlessly expansionist combo they'd make a great unit to flood the mid-board with. In all honesty I'm not sure they'd be better than another warrior blob, but it's definitely good to have squads you can be seriously aggressive with.

[VoceNoctum]

The new flayed ones are super models, but not sure I want to spend the $ for a bunch of them. Points I can justify, but unless there's more than 5 sculpts, it seems a bit unlikely I'll get more of them.

 

Hexmark I have because he's cool. The game right now just doesn't have a bunch of 1 wound guys running at him to make him shine I think. Thematically, he's a perfect Destroyer, strapping extra arms on to gun down humans even faster, but in game the humans all have super armor. Having him deep strike into an area to do tasks seems like a bit much for his cost, but I guess since he's not the best in combat, it'd make sense to have him do actions if possible.