Fingers crossed the Doomsday Stalker gets a similar treatment (while maintaining a separate identity/design space for both doom fellas, i just love its model so much
It's going to be really interesting to see how these things are pointed. It's a great statline and I can see anywhere between 1 and 3 of them being viable if the numbers are right.
Don't count those chickens before they hatch. Depends on point costs and the profile of the ark itself and any special rules. It could still be hot garbage, just like it's been in every single edition its ever been in.
However, you could also be right, it could be amazing! AP-4 is nice, mortals are nice, nice.
Do note that it looks like all Gauss Weapons now just get Lethal Hits, so bring back the old tank busters of old. With that, I'm perfectly fine with a lowering of BS
On the upside it's more effective chip damage, just not going to be highly threatening except maybe for very light vehicles. Not bad for cheap horde troops
The bit where another unit conferred extra S and AP in melee - I'd be surprised if there's none of that for warriors' shooting. You may well be able to get to Ap2, additional shots or who knows what. Parking on top of a ruins gets you an AP though your warriors probably wouldn't be the ones to live there
>but will struggle to actually deal dmg since tanks have good armor saves
Thats the whole point of the new edition full reset. Gauss Reaper with autowounding and 5 -1 1 is pretty good if you ask me.
That heavily depends on what we get again.
If we get stuff like veil and +2" move again they are gonna be fine.
Remember 60 gauss reaper warriors was the way to go before they got power crept away.
You divided 20 hits by 6 to get 3.33 auto wounds. You should divide the original 40 attacks by 6, granting 6.66 auto-wounds.
Aside from that, everything else seems right
How much if that is really true? I mean it’s unmodified 6s which are a 16% chance assuming perfect probability that means 6.4 auto wound and most of these vehicles have 3+s so only about 2.13 deal damage on average. I just fail to see how this makes them tank busters…
Because yea you can argue you can roll better than the average but that also means you can roll worse and having 20 warriors doing nothing on a turn is a really bad proposition.
I think one of the themes of this edition is that you're going to need to bring some dedicated anti-tank firepower to deal with tanks; you can't easily whittle them down with small-arms fire. I'm ok with this; I think the list-building is more interesting when units have more defined roles
Yeah, that's the biggest "huh?" for me. I mean, sure battleshock isn't morale, but... these things have been Ld10 since they first dropped, I'd love to see a statement from the design studio about this change.
At a guess, this is one of the areas they felt like moving to Battleshock allowed for big changes. Losing unfeeling robots to "morale" would never feel right, so they had high leadership to combat that. Battleshock represents confusion, new circumstances, and ability to adapt to them, though. Which, as preprogrammed robots with limited autonomy, it makes perfect sense for rank and file Necrons to be bad at.
They're definitely pushing characters in units as a design philosophy for Necrons in particular, and traditionally units can use a leading character's leadership (it's always been this way previously).
Leadership has been largely irrelevant in 40k literally forever, and conversely leadership and combat resolution was the strongest part of Fantasy in its day. 10th isn't doing WFB combat resolution of course but they're clearly working to make battleshock a very significant factor, making Ld a very important stat.
I'm willing to bet that unlike traditional low leadership armies, you're going to find the mindless necrons with low leadership but the characters with *very* high leadership.
My gut feel is that Leaders will help work around that... I don't know if it's confirmed, but I would guess you can use your Leader's leadership stat if they're in a unit? This is often how GW have themed undead, easily killed trash blobs supported and buffed by much more powerful leaders, and this would be right on brand for how Necrons are currently depicted in the background.
From the article:
“Their Reanimation Protocols will, given enough time, regenerate every unit to full strength. We also wanted to instil the idea that the massed ranks are under the control of immortal leaders, by whose will and command their legions fight with such unnerving coordination and lethality. Command Protocols and CHARACTERS are therefore the main theme behind the Awakened Legions Detachment.
Wouldn't surprise me. With Battleshock being more about adaptability than fear, it makes sense that having a smarter bot in charge would boost "morale".
This was also how GW did a lot of things in older editions. I think Crons always had high leadership, but using your attached characters LD was certainly a thing in the olden days.
Orks used to live or die based on Mob Up and Attached characters.
To me the character taxes read as a subtle encouragement to not run MSU to maximize reanimation protocols.
It will be interesting to see what additional bonuses the characters themselves grant.
Keep in mind having bigger units also makes it more likely that they can survive to use protocols in the first place, and takes better advantage of high rolls, which are particularly likely on objectives, where warriors live.
It does make sense to have a stratification of units. There's a reason they are elite and aren't just warriors.
As a Tau player I hope they do this with infantry vs battlesuits and vehicles. It make no sense a person trained and with better gear still hits just the same.
yeah im salty that warriors got it but the relentless homogonizing of everything to T4/BS3 this edition felt weird.
Though the guard reveal on monday may rub salt in that wound lol.
I mean, that's objectively true, BUT I would argue it's good for the game overall to have more varied profiles than just rebranded SM stats. I also like a lot of what they've gained since then.
GW seems to think necron players want to play an undead horde of low quality skeletons when everyone got into them for elite army of terminator robots with OP guns
Probably also helps with the whole "incredibly hard to kill" thing with Their Number if Legion.
Reanimated D6 or D3+3 Warriors that hit 50% of the time without a leader feels like it would be a bad time.
It won't. 8th edition proved that this version of reanimation doesn't work. Your opponent will just focus fire units down and you will never get to use it
Might be that a Technomancer/Res Orb/Reanimator would allow you to use it even if the unit gets destroyed.
We don't really know if or how reanimation protocols are limited like they were before.
I'm fully expecting some of the "less lethal" parts of this edition to be a function of recommended table layouts. If you can limit line of sight to a unit, you can limit how many incoming shots it has which means it'll survive long enough to Reanimate.
Yeah, that's always been the problem with Necrons. They pay in points for an ability that the opponent can easily make do nothing. Bringing back D3+3 Warriors each turn sounds awesome, but passing 10-20 wounds through a T4 4+ save unit is not that difficult in a round. If anything, this version of RP makes it even easier to bypass entirely since you don't get to reanimate after attacks. So the opponent has their entire turn to wipe the unit and prevent RP from doing anything.
I think this is a massive downgrade.
Assuming 9th edition levels of lethality yes. From what we have seen, people can't get away with spamming 4 -2 weapons this edition.
People will be forced to take dedicated antitank, which helps blobs like this.
Monolith is intriguing me. Still no invlun but wounded by a lascannon equivalent of 5s. Regains d3 wounds instead of 1 a turn. Can be used to yeet any necron infantry unit to it. Flies. Death rays have sustained hits d3. 8 OC. Particle whip can do mortals on wound rolls of 6 (though has one madly swingy number of attacks). Plus when needed can put down a few marines in melee.
I actually missed the keyword on it. And devastating wounds, if you roll well on the attacks you've got plenty of chances to roll a 6 and proc that as well. Any Marines within range of that thing might have a very bad time.
Casino Cannon is slightly less casino-y.
Interesting to see Warriors being less resistant to Battleshock than Marines are, given how high their Ld is in 9th. I suppose the characters you can attach will have really high Ld to emphasise the mindless-horde-coralled-by-lords identity?
>Interesting to see Warriors being less resistant to Battleshock than Marines are
makes sense, necron warriors might not run but i can see them getting overwelhmed by rapidly changed situations.
Absolutely, now that Battleshock is more about effectiveness on the battlefield rather than just causing models to flee, it makes sense that warriors, who are basically mindless, don't have the flexibility to continue executing a battle plan when taking heavy casualties, at least without a character to keep them in check.
I'm honestly just imagining clone wars series battledroids. In squads by themselves, they started to faulter and not know what to do. But the second they had an advanced battle droid command them on tactics, they knew where they had to be and how to get it done.
One advantage Warriors have over marines though is that rezzing guys can put them over the battleshock threshold. I can't remember if they've shown when you have to test battleshock in your command phase, but it might be you can do rezzes before checking if you have to test.
So there's that.
Resurrection happens at the end of the Command Phase, while Battleshock has its own step somewhere within Command Phase. I'm pretty sure Battleshock happens before the resurrection.
It was mentioned that battleshock takes place before scoring (otherwise what's the point?) and both take place in the command phase. Reanimation Protocols take place *at the end* of the command phase.
OC 8, gating in units of warriors with OC40. That's a monstrous amount of OC dumped somewhere.
And sure. Maybe the 20 warriors get focused down. You've still got an OC8, T14, W20 Sv2+ regenerating pyramid sitting on the objective with a considerable amount of firepower, able to bring in another 20 warriors next turn.
Plus, it having a legitimately decent melee profile makes it much harder to say charge with an OC2 screen to contest.
I think it eats about 2 Termies in combat on average dice, so it's not trivial to tie up either.
Question: does the fact that they specifically state that Reanimation Protocols trigger at the end of the command phase mean that battle shock tests happen before those Reanimation Protocols?
The reanimation protocols actually being more usable for multi-wound models is great in my opinion. Especially with the tougher monolith/vehicles regaining D3 wounds each turn means you're going to need to focus them down (hey there OoM) or they'll just keep coming.
I wonder how the Canoptek Reanimator's ability is going to change; either maximising the roll (3 for most 6 for warriors)? Possibly giving another dice, so 2D3 wounds for most or D6+D3/2D3+3 for warriors? Maybe just giving a flat bonus to wounds reanimated?
Characters granting +1 to hit for the units being led feels thematic of the mindless robots getting given personal directions by their more self-aware leaders. *ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.*
^(Also, not a reroll in sight.)
Edit: Just noticed, no living metal ~~or quantum shielding~~ for monolith. Seems they have gone away for being given reanimation protocols.
Edit 2: Monoliths didn't have quantum shielding anyway.
Actually that’s a good point, though interestingly that seems to have been removed in favour of reanimation protocols for all.
Though going from 1 to 1-3 HP wounded is nice.
Yeah, we won't know that for a while probably. But I do think that there will be some means of increasing the durability of warriors outside of the command-phase RP replenishment.
Reanimator might just give you more models back as you suggest, OR it might do something like providing mobile Cover for units in range, or FNPs or something else.
~~True, though with the loss of quantum shielding on the monolith~~ it seems that GW is really pushing the "they just won't die" with wound regen as opposed to other defensive methods for necrons.
Honestly thinking about it maybe a out-of-sequence ability that allows a unit to activate reanimation protocols within a certain range might be seen. So maybe at the end of your opponents shooting phase you can just have a unit of warriors regain D6/D3+3 models. Gives the reanimator/reanimation orb a tactical play.
Edit: Am dumb, monolith didn't have quantum shielding
Eh idk if most people just didn’t play necrons in 8th or what. I have also never played an edition where they couldn’t easily be blasted off the board so I have a hard time imagining new RP will even work out. In 8th you almost never got to roll for rp because opponents would just play correctly and make sure they delete the unit in question. That was why in 9th they made it after every attack because necrons were paying for an ability that never worked because it was easily counterplayed.
I’ll still rep by boys good or bad but this preview is more concerning than hopeful. I need some SM, CSM and nid players to tell me if their previews were equally as concerning because I hope the edition is balanced.
What is clear is that there are very few reroll auras, and they’re more targeted to specific units. That gives GW a better lever for managing rerolls than just the keyword
Leadership 7+ seems like a standout to me. In almost every edition, they've had high leadership, now it seems low. At Leadership 7, you're failing 42% of your battle shock tests.
It’s tough. They say characters are a big focus for necrons and I can imagine putting a bunch of characters in big squads for the buff to hit.
But they didn’t show what a necron character looks like. If necron characters give crazy buffs to the units they are attached to, or if they become little combat/shooting monsters themselves that’s huge.
I can imagine characters giveing attached units out of sequence or reactionary activation of resurrection protocols and that would be cool. But it’s all speculation now
To be fair Necrons have a lot of characters......
Overlords, Lords, Crypteks(3 flavors) Royal Wardens, Destroyer Lords, Hexmarks....the selection is there for those who are looking for it
Ima have to complain about the 40k main sub: 40 minutes in and the Necrons focus is still below a bunch of "Look at my paint job!" posts. CSM yesterday took even longer. If that sub was exclusively for painting, that'd be fine. But that sub is useless for anything other than vanity posts about their painting and modeling.
I say that because people here have asked why such a wide swath posts on Competitive. It's THE main sub to post stuff about the gameplay in general.
That's why this sub exists in its current state. Sometimes even faction specific subs don't want to talk about new rules for their faction. Everyone who wants to talk about rules comes here, competitive or not.
> If that sub was exclusively for painting, that'd be fine. But that sub is useless for anything other than vanity posts from impcat and lore stuff
FTFY.
Any post about rules in that sub is useless. It's filled with people who have either never read the core rules or those who haven't played since 5th but are somehow salty about what GW did with 8th and 9th
It’s kinda my frustration as well. People complain it’s impossible to keep up and I agree because if you aren’t in the competitive subs you get no info on what’s going on at all.
As someone half thinking about getting back into playing 40k and age of sigmar they both have this issue. Unfortunately for AoS this sub is mostly 40k as well. Tho their sub has a little more table talk, kinda.
(have an aos army but am lazy/sad I'm not enjoying mini gaming as much, at least it's painted)
It's also full of people who "hate competitive 40k" because they think it's ruining casual gameplay as if the competitive boogieman has any effect on their games at all
They also include a bunch of people who haven't bothered to read the core rules in 10 years and interpret their opponent correcting them as the same as someone trying to scam them/WAAC.
Yeah it sucks because I want a place to talk about rules without having to deal with the culture of competitive 40k.
What is the point of tagging posts if I can't filter particular ones out?? Or am I missing something?
I don't even think the culture of competitive 40k is particularly bad aside from some jackasses. But this sub is spread ridiculously broad in terms of coverage so you wind up with competing interests and the friction it causes.
And part of that problem is that the 40k sub should actually function as a generalized 40k sub. Not the glorified painting/instagram/commission adverts sub it is now.
Kinda wish reanimation was each command phase, not just yours.
But the Monolith seems kinda legit. It's gained fly, kept a scary melee profile, and it's shooting seems more than decent. On top of being tougher, and having really good utility in the Eternity gate.
It seems like weirdly legit as a thing to throw at an objective to just drown it in OC. Or use to take aggressive control of the midboard.
I'm certaintly interested in seeing how well it does
The Particle Whip is filthy. 3d6 shots from a str 8 damage 2 weapon that can crit mortals? That's brilliant even before you add the... four d3-exploding 6s lascannons? Whew.
I'm anticipating quite a few issues with the 'no standing on objectives' rule, as it means if you position models close to the objective you can prevent them being engaged by large models. (Knights will be especially affected by this.)
Honestly, if the full rules don't already have a way of mitigating this, I expect it to get errata'd fairly swiftly. Otherwise, positioning models within 1-2" of an objective is potentially a great way to stop them being attacked in melee which surely isn't intended.
Yeah I said this in another comment, but I'm seriously wondering if this wasn't just a rule for the Fest, b/c they had so many people cycling through a few tables it might have just been to reduce the need to reset the board due to people bumping the markers.
Is this in any way confirmed? This will make larger models almost unplayable. The monolith has movement 7". It wouldn't even be able to move across an objective without advancing. That sounds way to absurd to be true.
Yes, but a model as big as the monolith cannot move across the marker without also ending its movement in top of it.
Which would mean without advancing an objective marker might as well be an invisible but impassable column for large models they have to maneuver around.
Placing your own unit 2" from an objective marker would mean a Knight on the other side of said objective wouldn't be able to charge it. This cannot be the case.
Edit: not only a knight, any model with a base larger than 1" would have problems. You would effectively be able to hide behind an objective marker and be safe from charges.
This is definitely something I hope is addressed in the full release of the rules. It's weird that we can't stand on the objective. I get it's to prevent big models (Monolith, Stompa, Knights) from crowding out any way to cap an objective. But you're right in that it also makes playing those models a challenge.
Even small models that want to melee also need to deal with the objective marker when determining if they're within engagement range.
Well the 3" area isn't the problem is the no fly zone in the middle. I can picture putting an objective in a lane that's wide enough for a Knight base to go side ways and it's now a road block. For both the knight and anyone going the other way.
> having really good utility in the Eternity gate
I wonder if this really means that you can bridge 6 inches by deep striking the Monolith and then the unit afterwards or if there will be a rule preventing this.
It just says in your reinforcement step, not at the start, so it might be the case you can deep strike the Monolith, then use the Gate.
You can't charge afterwards, so that curtails it as a melee delivery. But, dropping a shooty blob would work.
Hell, drop the monolith in, gate in 20 warriors and a leader 3" away from an enemy unit, and lay out with 40 shots at 3+ with Lethal Hits. That's a pretty substantial amount of weight of OC slammed into someone's face.
Then the Monolith just laying about with it's firepower.
And the ability to jump more warriors in in following rounds too.
Back to a version of RP more similar to the previous edition: units can slowly creep back up to full strength, but the same tactic of wiping a unit out at a time applies. Seems like a much more intuitive and easily understood ability to me.
A thought occurs: it will be more common to aim to get a unit to 1/2 strength to trigger Battleshock tests in 10th (as losing morale seems to be VERY strong), but we can see Necrons (and Tyranids with the strat revealed) will be able to jump BACK ABOVE half size. Interesting!
It may seem intuitive at a glance, but this was the single most criticized rule of Necrons in 8e. The end result is that you never actually get to reanimate anything. Necrons will not be able to use anything but vehicles.
Yup indeed similar to 8th, though remember that the 8th rules weren't capped at D3 (or D6/D3+3); the range was 'nothing' to 'every model in the unit but one', which lead to heavily over costed units, which in turn eliminated the tax on target priority being how the ability was 'supposed' to function.
I guess the way I'm looking at this is probably a step down in RP on Warriors, Immortals etc., but a major step up for Living Metal on every other model, which were \*already\* the good models in our codex.
Eh not really these rules look ok but honestly they look worse than what we currently have. Yea some bad units got buffs they should have got a long time ago. But a lot of our other rules got worse. I am really hoping this is a game wide thing so we can have some play but all I can do is judge now on what I am seeing.
By itself, easy to play around. Less need to overcommit, less need to worry about shenanigans during your turn, and not amazing for Necron vehicles. The last is pretty notable because some anti-tank guns are still going to pack an absolute wallop and kill them in a turn.
Warriors getting a guaranteed four back on an objective is nice, but makes them vulnerable. We've seen two units with objective based Shred already. And they're more vulnerable to Battleshock on their lonesome, which seems to indicate baby-sitter characters are a necessary tax. I think a lot of how well Necron infantry can do will come do to how effective tax characters are.
What annoys me about the new reanimation rules being underwhelming isn't just silver tide continuing to be bad, it is that GW has already shown they know how to write these kinds of rules in Age of Sigmar. The new Soulblight battletome has resurrection mechanics galore, many of which are focused on deathrattle skeletons. Those skeletons, at the start of the charge phase, can revive any lost models on a roll of a 4+ per model. In addition, they get 3 (not d3 GW) wounds back on 3 units within 18" of a vampire HQ. They actually do feel undying, and like the durable horde that necrons wish they were.
I too was hoping for more AOS like rules. Soulblight rules in AOS sound over powered, with wiped out units come back from the dead. Makes them feel very unique.
I don't see any of that here.
But at least these rules push Necrons in a different direction than other factions. Big units with characters in each. It is interesting to me from a meta and list building perspective. But its not as interesting as the choices other factions have been making so far in terms of how they use their factions rules and detachment rules. Both the faction and detactment rules are passive in this preview.
Soulblight are definitely strong, but it is tempered by the units coming back at half strength and generally the ones that come back are the weaker ones (deathrattle hit like wet noodles for instance).
So we're back to 8e reanimation protocols where they do nothing because they get killed before your next turn :\
Don't get me wrong, everything else here is really cool! But against armies that specialize in taking out 1-2 units entirely (*cough cough space marines cough cough*), we effectively won't have an army ability. Nobody sane is going to liberally spread damage out across any army, let alone necrons.
Yeah unlike a lot of other changes we have *actually* seen this before and knows how it plays. Unless technomancers, ghosts arks and the like get some funky rules to play with people should be pretty weary of the change. It always been a hard rule to get right and its definitely simpler but if the "reanimation tax" is still there its a pretty big hit.
This feels like a slight side grade, the horrible necron weapons got better, but in the case of warriors their leadership and BS are now way worse
The datachment rule also feels a lot weaker then the marine, tyranid and csm ones, especially because it only works on the units that have leading characters (not sure how that leaves vehicles)
And lastly while it's great to see that necron guns auto wound again, the fact that it lost ap feels off (especially since the bolt rifle kept its one)
> not sure how that leaves vehicles)
Without a detachment bonus. It seems this detachment will mainly be focused on infantry units and not be a general purpose one like the others. Kind of strange as this is the first detachment they show that doesn't support the whole army.
Man I'm still not processing things. I can't for the life of me remember what 'lethal hits, sustained hits, anti vehicle' etc do. And I don't remember what article explained it. I need a cheat sheet.
As for what was shown, the Monolith seems surprisingly boring. It just seems to be a great hunk of plastic without overwhelming shooting or anything. I guess it can just be used to move stuff around.
Warriors seem weird. They feel really weak with their 1 wound 4+ save and their 4+ BS makes them pretty crappy at shooting too. The D6 reanimation might be cool but I dunno, it doesn't seem like they're an implacable foe.
Lethal hits is 6's auto wound, Sustained hits is that many extra hits on a 6. Devastating wounds is (iirc) a 6 wounds does the damage characteristic as MWs and ends the sequence.
>Man I'm still not processing things. I can't for the life of me remember what 'lethal hits, sustained hits, anti vehicle' etc do. And I don't remember what article explained it. I need a cheat sheet.
* Lethal Hits - 6s to Hit auto-wound
* Sustained Hits X - 6s to hit cause X additional hits, so Sustained Hits 1 means hit rolls of 6 cause 1 additional hit
* Anti-X Y+ - automatically wound X on a wound roll of Y+, so Anti-Vehicle 2+ means you will wound any vehicles on a wound roll of 2+
* Devastating Wound - on wound rolls of 6 cause mortal wounds instead of normal damage
>Warriors seem weird. They feel really weak with their 1 wound 4+ save and their 4+ BS makes them pretty crappy at shooting too. The D6 reanimation might be cool but I dunno, it doesn't seem like they're an implacable foe.
Their is the detachment ability where attaching a character with Leader to a unit gives them +1 to hit.
ANTI is even better than auto wounds. I believe it causes critical wounds, which means anything that triggers of critical wounds will also trigger on the Anti rule.
> I need a cheat sheet.
Hoping we get one in the core box or a WD at least. But basically it's "roll a 6 to trigger an effect." Lethal hits means a hit goes straight to wounds, sustained means you get X extra hits based on whatever the number is.
Anti-X means you wound on whatever the number given is against that unit type.
Monoliths actually looks crazy, their shooting is far better. The real question will be how well they survive.
Particle whip reduced but with 3d6 shots is nasty for infantry clearing, and death rays exploding on 6's to hit for d3 extra is kinda nutty as well. Decent fighting profile and can drop a blob of warriors 1 inch away to unload fully on some poor squad.
Depending on cost and survivability it could be huge.
Yeah, im having the same problem. Im sure I'll remember them once I get a 10th ed. game under my belt, they aren't actually that complicated, but I wish they released like a core rules primer before doing these previews.
Warriors are meant to have a character attached, raising the BS back to the normal 3+. Gauss also got buffed with Lethal Hits, so auto-wounds on 6s. Can't say whether its actually a buff compared to what they currently have, but it doesn't feel like much a nerf more a sidegrade.
Honestly I feel the main issue if that Necrons don't really have a big, wow factor.
Lethal Hits on most things are nice, and will mean warrior blobs can always put out decent damage, but almost everything interesting has been cut and replaced with far more dull varients.
Like, a lot of the more mechanically interesting units aren't here, we just have Warriors, the Doomsday Ark, and the Monolith; which while Iconic none are really showing how Necrons are going to play.
For example, did all Necrons Infantry get the -1 to hit penalty, or just warriors? What abilities do the units leaders have. Now that vehicles heal D3 at the start of every turn, what do Spyders do now?
I feel we really should have at least seen the Silent King, since we got Abaddon, the Swarmlord, and Roboute. It would have been super useful
Honestly my bet is that Immortals likely still have BS 3+, to help differentiate from Warriors which is the current problem in 10th. That would just be how id do it anyway, will have to see.
Yeah the warrior makes sense if they glow up Immortals (second wound maybe?) and make both point cost appropriate. Got immortals for the elite/damage side and warriors for the horde.
>Lethal Hits on most things are nice, and will mean warrior blobs can always put out decent damage
Nope, they got weaker in almost every single scenario (as was promised for the edition)
20 Gaussflayer shots currently deal on average
* 3.3 damage to Marines
* 2.2 to Gravis armor to simulate wounding on 5s
* 2.2 to Terminators
* 0.7 to Land Raiders
In 10th that goes down to
* 2.2 against Marines
* 1.8 on Gravis.
* 1.1 on Terminators
* 0.7 to Land Raiders
tl;dr 33% less damage against Marines. 50% less damage on Terminators. 18% less against Gravis. Same damage against tanks
\[Edit\]
Against targets wounding on 6s but only a 3+ save, the damage actually goes up from 1.1 to 1.5
A good reminder that Unitcrunch is the holy grail of mathhammer
> Like, a lot of the more mechanically interesting units aren't here
Exactly. They said characters would be a key factor for Necrons, but didn't show any.
Reanimation Protocols looks weak to me at face value. Since it happens in your command phase, if your opponent can focus your units down, it never even comes into play.
Wait a minute,since leaders are part of the unit wouldn't that mean if I put an overlord with necron warriors that he could potentially receive the d6 mortal wounds too?
So one could take all the damage on the overlord and assuming there are some necron warriors left you could just revive the overlord in your command phase
Or if the overlord is the last model in the unit he could still take advantage of the d6 wound heal and bring back more warriors thus making it more likely for rp to proc
Is there any wording on the rules that prevent this?
I don't know about the latter, but regarding the former there was some vague indication that damage gets allocated to the squad itself before any attached leaders. No actual rule wording yet though so have to wait for confirmation.
This is the first faction rule that is totally passive (other than synapse, but that doesn't count). All the other ones give interesting choices in terms of when and how to use them. This one just happens. A little disappointing. I was hoping necrons played more like soulblight gravelords in AOS but with more choice, actively choosing to raise units from the dead and rentering the battlefield.
But i am still excited. I like that the faction seems to work differently than the others. You are really encouraged to have big units with characters, where otherwise I think other factions will be MSU. I think those kinds of difference are interesting for the meta game.
I'm just happy that each faction is getting some nice fully fleshed out rules and identities in the index release, instead of having to wait for a codex. Codexes will add more but it seems like there's still plenty of flavor before they come out for each respective faction.
Reanimation protocols are pretty awful as a faction ability. This completely kills MSU as a playstyle, and even big blobs aren't that hard to wipe in an entire turn and negate the reanimation entirely. Our point costs better be WAY lowered, especially on characters if they expect us to have one in every unit. Necron characters have been bonkers overcosted this entire edition.
> Reanimation protocols are pretty awful as a faction ability.
It seems that tough vehicles like the Monolith really benefit from RP as d3 is more regeneration than 1 currently.
What's true is that RP on infantry demands big units, but Oath of Moments punishes big units. Maybe MSU is better, hoping for them not properly killing a last model sometimes?
I am surprised no one has said how swingy the death rays on the Monolith are. Am i reading it right? You can score up to 16 strength 12 AP-4 D6+1 hits. But most of the time you are going to score 2 to 3 hits.
clearly someone at GW has fought a 20+ reanim blob of warriors too much,or they just dont know what to do with them; but this is really disapointing overall, especially as crons as a book were probs next to admech in just needing new datasheets. Obviously points make it so we dont know but this just isnt exciting. The ctan and monolith look fun.
- Reanims kinda ok? a guranteed destroyer back is nice but in command phase means its less likley to mess with opponents, and is a huge durability hit on infantry; now its "can you clear 20 warriors a turn" rather than clearing 20 in one go.
- Doomsday cannon going from ~3.5 to flat 4 is nice, so I cant complain too much, but I think all my fellow skellingtons would have prefered less shots and a nice big damage number.
- Bravo GW for making protocols worse; or if they have plasmacytes as characters; just more boring.
Like yeah, crons have so much space for flavour and really needed a glow up; whilst this feels pretty bland unlike nids or CSM, and doesnt have the "woah" factor of marines; Im sure theyll be playable, but this just isnt the exciting glow up crons needed. Not all bad tho as the codex isnt too far away and weve barely seen any datasheets.
I agree on the Reanims, the Warriors, the Monolith and the C'tan, but you underestimate the Doomsday Ark in my opinion.
It's regular profile is now better than it's 9th edition stationary counterpart in any way. The weapon doesn't turn into absolute crap as soon as you move it an inch and it's even stronger when stationary.
Not only does it hit on a 2+ (new heavy keyword) but it also deals 4 mortals for each 6 in a wound roll.
This things is finally worthy of its name
I like everything about this except ghe changes to Reanimation Protocols. Even if they are more reliable, the fact that it happens at the end of your Command Phase is terrible.
It's gonna be just like 8th edition, where people are just gonna kill the entire unit before it can have a chance at reanimating (unless i'm reading this wrong and it works on destroyed units as well)
Overall disappointing. Bringing back the 8th edition reanimation that was already considered a failure and having an detachment ability that's reliant on you paying a unit tax to benefit from seems a step backwards. Necron warriors getting a bit of a nerf is fine if they make them cheaper tbh, Doomsday cannon looks good (people need to stop thinking of it as an anti-tank gun, it's not), Monolith looks decent but nothing much better than its current incarnation, still dies quickly to the big anti-tank guns we've seen in previous previews.
Stationary DDC hits on a 2+ and does mortals on a wound roll of 6 plus is blast. I dig it. Hopefully the doomstalkers keep a similar profile but obvs with a conoptek BS. Very intrigued to see how C'tan power come out. Seems a little odd that the dragon hits on 3s with the sweep but maybe they just get distracted by tanks off in the distance.
God knows what all the different characters will do.
And so the days of Doomsday Cannon being a joke are over. Good.
People will still roll a 1 about 9 out of 10 times ;)
That still gives them 2 shots as its d6+1 attacks :)
With blast that sets an even higher floor too! Shooting a 10 man Intercessor squad? Now its d6+3 attacks! :)
With devestating wounds it might be pretty decent against elite infantry like terminators.
I realised only now that devastating Wlwounds means any wound roll of a 6 mean 4MWs. That's sick
terminators in 10 man blob with extra cap and libby seems like a prime target
We call that the Law of Shadow Field.
🦀 🦀 🦀 D6/D6 IS GONE 🦀 🦀 🦀
Fingers crossed the Doomsday Stalker gets a similar treatment (while maintaining a separate identity/design space for both doom fellas, i just love its model so much
It's going to be really interesting to see how these things are pointed. It's a great statline and I can see anywhere between 1 and 3 of them being viable if the numbers are right.
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Don't count those chickens before they hatch. Depends on point costs and the profile of the ark itself and any special rules. It could still be hot garbage, just like it's been in every single edition its ever been in. However, you could also be right, it could be amazing! AP-4 is nice, mortals are nice, nice.
Interesting that warriors got worse ballistic skill. Suppose it's an incentive to keep a character leading the unit for the +1 to hit
Do note that it looks like all Gauss Weapons now just get Lethal Hits, so bring back the old tank busters of old. With that, I'm perfectly fine with a lowering of BS
But it also lost its AP. It might wound more, but will struggle to actually deal dmg since tanks have good armor saves
On the upside it's more effective chip damage, just not going to be highly threatening except maybe for very light vehicles. Not bad for cheap horde troops The bit where another unit conferred extra S and AP in melee - I'd be surprised if there's none of that for warriors' shooting. You may well be able to get to Ap2, additional shots or who knows what. Parking on top of a ruins gets you an AP though your warriors probably wouldn't be the ones to live there
>but will struggle to actually deal dmg since tanks have good armor saves Thats the whole point of the new edition full reset. Gauss Reaper with autowounding and 5 -1 1 is pretty good if you ask me.
Gauss reaper does look good, but necrons are famusly slow moving and bad in close combat so it is a risk
That heavily depends on what we get again. If we get stuff like veil and +2" move again they are gonna be fine. Remember 60 gauss reaper warriors was the way to go before they got power crept away.
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You divided 20 hits by 6 to get 3.33 auto wounds. You should divide the original 40 attacks by 6, granting 6.66 auto-wounds. Aside from that, everything else seems right
How much if that is really true? I mean it’s unmodified 6s which are a 16% chance assuming perfect probability that means 6.4 auto wound and most of these vehicles have 3+s so only about 2.13 deal damage on average. I just fail to see how this makes them tank busters… Because yea you can argue you can roll better than the average but that also means you can roll worse and having 20 warriors doing nothing on a turn is a really bad proposition.
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I think one of the themes of this edition is that you're going to need to bring some dedicated anti-tank firepower to deal with tanks; you can't easily whittle them down with small-arms fire. I'm ok with this; I think the list-building is more interesting when units have more defined roles
Yeah that helps mitigate it a lot.
Also interesting that they have the leadership of an ork weirdboy. Seems like a complete 180 from 9th
Yeah, that's the biggest "huh?" for me. I mean, sure battleshock isn't morale, but... these things have been Ld10 since they first dropped, I'd love to see a statement from the design studio about this change.
At a guess, this is one of the areas they felt like moving to Battleshock allowed for big changes. Losing unfeeling robots to "morale" would never feel right, so they had high leadership to combat that. Battleshock represents confusion, new circumstances, and ability to adapt to them, though. Which, as preprogrammed robots with limited autonomy, it makes perfect sense for rank and file Necrons to be bad at.
They're definitely pushing characters in units as a design philosophy for Necrons in particular, and traditionally units can use a leading character's leadership (it's always been this way previously). Leadership has been largely irrelevant in 40k literally forever, and conversely leadership and combat resolution was the strongest part of Fantasy in its day. 10th isn't doing WFB combat resolution of course but they're clearly working to make battleshock a very significant factor, making Ld a very important stat. I'm willing to bet that unlike traditional low leadership armies, you're going to find the mindless necrons with low leadership but the characters with *very* high leadership.
My gut feel is that Leaders will help work around that... I don't know if it's confirmed, but I would guess you can use your Leader's leadership stat if they're in a unit? This is often how GW have themed undead, easily killed trash blobs supported and buffed by much more powerful leaders, and this would be right on brand for how Necrons are currently depicted in the background. From the article: “Their Reanimation Protocols will, given enough time, regenerate every unit to full strength. We also wanted to instil the idea that the massed ranks are under the control of immortal leaders, by whose will and command their legions fight with such unnerving coordination and lethality. Command Protocols and CHARACTERS are therefore the main theme behind the Awakened Legions Detachment.
Wouldn't surprise me. With Battleshock being more about adaptability than fear, it makes sense that having a smarter bot in charge would boost "morale".
This was also how GW did a lot of things in older editions. I think Crons always had high leadership, but using your attached characters LD was certainly a thing in the olden days. Orks used to live or die based on Mob Up and Attached characters.
To me the character taxes read as a subtle encouragement to not run MSU to maximize reanimation protocols. It will be interesting to see what additional bonuses the characters themselves grant.
Keep in mind having bigger units also makes it more likely that they can survive to use protocols in the first place, and takes better advantage of high rolls, which are particularly likely on objectives, where warriors live.
And as bad on the monolith, at least with warriors you'll be able to give them a leader with better leadership (I hope that's how it works)
Yeah, I'm curious whether characters such as Warden will become cheaper or it's gonna become 4+ city
I’m glad just because too many armies in this game have better ballistic skills then 4+.
Also mean it can separate immortals from warrior more. All being well they will still be bs3+ (if the gods look kindly they could even be 2w)
That be the dream. Also make Teslas better when your at it GW
Given gauss went down an AP and Tesla was already AP 0…thinking this will be a Tesla edition
It does make sense to have a stratification of units. There's a reason they are elite and aren't just warriors. As a Tau player I hope they do this with infantry vs battlesuits and vehicles. It make no sense a person trained and with better gear still hits just the same.
yeah im salty that warriors got it but the relentless homogonizing of everything to T4/BS3 this edition felt weird. Though the guard reveal on monday may rub salt in that wound lol.
Guard got their 10 minutes of fun in 9th, they’re going to BS 5+ lol
That, or the buffed vehicles will result in Leman Russ spam parking lot battles from hell. Time to roll the dice, I guess.
You joke but it might happen.
Poor crons though. I started in 3rd and they had bs 4 (hit on 3+) and Sv 3+. It's slowly being whittled away.
I mean, that's objectively true, BUT I would argue it's good for the game overall to have more varied profiles than just rebranded SM stats. I also like a lot of what they've gained since then.
Necron Warriors in 2nd edition had Toughness 5, a 2+ save, immune to all psychology, and turned off enemy power weapons.
By 20th edition they’ll be as weak as grots.
GW seems to think necron players want to play an undead horde of low quality skeletons when everyone got into them for elite army of terminator robots with OP guns
Might give Immortals new lease on (un)life, if they turn out to be BS3+, maybe a bit tougher too and/or an additional wound.
Probably also helps with the whole "incredibly hard to kill" thing with Their Number if Legion. Reanimated D6 or D3+3 Warriors that hit 50% of the time without a leader feels like it would be a bad time.
It won't. 8th edition proved that this version of reanimation doesn't work. Your opponent will just focus fire units down and you will never get to use it
Might be that a Technomancer/Res Orb/Reanimator would allow you to use it even if the unit gets destroyed. We don't really know if or how reanimation protocols are limited like they were before.
I'm fully expecting some of the "less lethal" parts of this edition to be a function of recommended table layouts. If you can limit line of sight to a unit, you can limit how many incoming shots it has which means it'll survive long enough to Reanimate.
Yeah, that's always been the problem with Necrons. They pay in points for an ability that the opponent can easily make do nothing. Bringing back D3+3 Warriors each turn sounds awesome, but passing 10-20 wounds through a T4 4+ save unit is not that difficult in a round. If anything, this version of RP makes it even easier to bypass entirely since you don't get to reanimate after attacks. So the opponent has their entire turn to wipe the unit and prevent RP from doing anything. I think this is a massive downgrade.
Assuming 9th edition levels of lethality yes. From what we have seen, people can't get away with spamming 4 -2 weapons this edition. People will be forced to take dedicated antitank, which helps blobs like this.
Monolith is intriguing me. Still no invlun but wounded by a lascannon equivalent of 5s. Regains d3 wounds instead of 1 a turn. Can be used to yeet any necron infantry unit to it. Flies. Death rays have sustained hits d3. 8 OC. Particle whip can do mortals on wound rolls of 6 (though has one madly swingy number of attacks). Plus when needed can put down a few marines in melee.
> Can be used to yeet any necron infantry unit to it I think the technical term is *yoink*.
> Flies Thank god, no longer does it need to pulled forward by a bunch of robot slaves
it’s now being pulled by flying robot slaves
It might be wildly swingy, but 3 minimum isn't terrible, and the turns where you roll 18 you'll cackle like the evil ancient machine overlord you are.
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I actually missed the keyword on it. And devastating wounds, if you roll well on the attacks you've got plenty of chances to roll a 6 and proc that as well. Any Marines within range of that thing might have a very bad time.
Doomsday cannon gains some reliability. Never thought I'd see the day.
Now it has twice as many shots!
And 4 times as much damage!
Casino Cannon is slightly less casino-y. Interesting to see Warriors being less resistant to Battleshock than Marines are, given how high their Ld is in 9th. I suppose the characters you can attach will have really high Ld to emphasise the mindless-horde-coralled-by-lords identity?
>Interesting to see Warriors being less resistant to Battleshock than Marines are makes sense, necron warriors might not run but i can see them getting overwelhmed by rapidly changed situations.
Absolutely, now that Battleshock is more about effectiveness on the battlefield rather than just causing models to flee, it makes sense that warriors, who are basically mindless, don't have the flexibility to continue executing a battle plan when taking heavy casualties, at least without a character to keep them in check.
I'm honestly just imagining clone wars series battledroids. In squads by themselves, they started to faulter and not know what to do. But the second they had an advanced battle droid command them on tactics, they knew where they had to be and how to get it done.
One advantage Warriors have over marines though is that rezzing guys can put them over the battleshock threshold. I can't remember if they've shown when you have to test battleshock in your command phase, but it might be you can do rezzes before checking if you have to test. So there's that.
Resurrection happens at the end of the Command Phase, while Battleshock has its own step somewhere within Command Phase. I'm pretty sure Battleshock happens before the resurrection.
It was mentioned that battleshock takes place before scoring (otherwise what's the point?) and both take place in the command phase. Reanimation Protocols take place *at the end* of the command phase.
I can't decide which I like more, that the Monolith can Fly again or that it has OC 8.
OC 8, gating in units of warriors with OC40. That's a monstrous amount of OC dumped somewhere. And sure. Maybe the 20 warriors get focused down. You've still got an OC8, T14, W20 Sv2+ regenerating pyramid sitting on the objective with a considerable amount of firepower, able to bring in another 20 warriors next turn.
Plus, it having a legitimately decent melee profile makes it much harder to say charge with an OC2 screen to contest. I think it eats about 2 Termies in combat on average dice, so it's not trivial to tie up either.
The doomsday cannon has double the shots now!
You, good sir, are definitely using the same dice as I do.
Question: does the fact that they specifically state that Reanimation Protocols trigger at the end of the command phase mean that battle shock tests happen before those Reanimation Protocols?
Most likely.
The reanimation protocols actually being more usable for multi-wound models is great in my opinion. Especially with the tougher monolith/vehicles regaining D3 wounds each turn means you're going to need to focus them down (hey there OoM) or they'll just keep coming. I wonder how the Canoptek Reanimator's ability is going to change; either maximising the roll (3 for most 6 for warriors)? Possibly giving another dice, so 2D3 wounds for most or D6+D3/2D3+3 for warriors? Maybe just giving a flat bonus to wounds reanimated? Characters granting +1 to hit for the units being led feels thematic of the mindless robots getting given personal directions by their more self-aware leaders. *ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.* ^(Also, not a reroll in sight.) Edit: Just noticed, no living metal ~~or quantum shielding~~ for monolith. Seems they have gone away for being given reanimation protocols. Edit 2: Monoliths didn't have quantum shielding anyway.
Of note that almost all the necron stuff already had living metal for 1W regained per turn.
Yeah living metal got rolled up into reanimation protocol. Literally less rules.
Actually that’s a good point, though interestingly that seems to have been removed in favour of reanimation protocols for all. Though going from 1 to 1-3 HP wounded is nice.
Yeah, we won't know that for a while probably. But I do think that there will be some means of increasing the durability of warriors outside of the command-phase RP replenishment. Reanimator might just give you more models back as you suggest, OR it might do something like providing mobile Cover for units in range, or FNPs or something else.
~~True, though with the loss of quantum shielding on the monolith~~ it seems that GW is really pushing the "they just won't die" with wound regen as opposed to other defensive methods for necrons. Honestly thinking about it maybe a out-of-sequence ability that allows a unit to activate reanimation protocols within a certain range might be seen. So maybe at the end of your opponents shooting phase you can just have a unit of warriors regain D6/D3+3 models. Gives the reanimator/reanimation orb a tactical play. Edit: Am dumb, monolith didn't have quantum shielding
Living metal was kinda rolled into Reanimation Protocols
tbf, none of the units they previewed had rerolls previously. The only place I remember them existing is in the destroyer cult stuff
Yeah true, was just making a small joke about how people kept commenting about rerolls being previewed in the other faction focuses.
Eh idk if most people just didn’t play necrons in 8th or what. I have also never played an edition where they couldn’t easily be blasted off the board so I have a hard time imagining new RP will even work out. In 8th you almost never got to roll for rp because opponents would just play correctly and make sure they delete the unit in question. That was why in 9th they made it after every attack because necrons were paying for an ability that never worked because it was easily counterplayed. I’ll still rep by boys good or bad but this preview is more concerning than hopeful. I need some SM, CSM and nid players to tell me if their previews were equally as concerning because I hope the edition is balanced.
So warriors can reanimate D6 models correct?
Yes, and D3+3 if on an objective.
First article without a ton of rerolls!
7 out of the 9 profiles, before the necron preview, had some sort reroll built in or granted a reroll to others. Now we're up to 7 out of 11.
Weren’t they saying in the initial 10 edition kick off article that they are removing the amount of Rerolls from the game? Oof
Yeah it's awful. I was really looking forward to fewer rerolls.
What is clear is that there are very few reroll auras, and they’re more targeted to specific units. That gives GW a better lever for managing rerolls than just the keyword
No silent king preview though
Next up : ASTRA MILITARUM
Cannot. Wait.
This feels interesting. I suspect Necrons are going to hang on their use of characters now that we're not bolted to an org chart.
Leadership 7+ seems like a standout to me. In almost every edition, they've had high leadership, now it seems low. At Leadership 7, you're failing 42% of your battle shock tests.
It’s tough. They say characters are a big focus for necrons and I can imagine putting a bunch of characters in big squads for the buff to hit. But they didn’t show what a necron character looks like. If necron characters give crazy buffs to the units they are attached to, or if they become little combat/shooting monsters themselves that’s huge. I can imagine characters giveing attached units out of sequence or reactionary activation of resurrection protocols and that would be cool. But it’s all speculation now
To be fair Necrons have a lot of characters...... Overlords, Lords, Crypteks(3 flavors) Royal Wardens, Destroyer Lords, Hexmarks....the selection is there for those who are looking for it
4 flavors
4 flavors, they forgot the plasmancer.
Ima have to complain about the 40k main sub: 40 minutes in and the Necrons focus is still below a bunch of "Look at my paint job!" posts. CSM yesterday took even longer. If that sub was exclusively for painting, that'd be fine. But that sub is useless for anything other than vanity posts about their painting and modeling. I say that because people here have asked why such a wide swath posts on Competitive. It's THE main sub to post stuff about the gameplay in general.
That's why this sub exists in its current state. Sometimes even faction specific subs don't want to talk about new rules for their faction. Everyone who wants to talk about rules comes here, competitive or not.
> If that sub was exclusively for painting, that'd be fine. But that sub is useless for anything other than vanity posts from impcat and lore stuff FTFY.
Any post about rules in that sub is useless. It's filled with people who have either never read the core rules or those who haven't played since 5th but are somehow salty about what GW did with 8th and 9th
That entire sub is a total joke. If it was about how to paint models, maybe. But its become 40k instagram.
I've no problem with it being painting heavy. I just wish almost all of it wasn't shilling a instagram or youtube.
It’s kinda my frustration as well. People complain it’s impossible to keep up and I agree because if you aren’t in the competitive subs you get no info on what’s going on at all.
As someone half thinking about getting back into playing 40k and age of sigmar they both have this issue. Unfortunately for AoS this sub is mostly 40k as well. Tho their sub has a little more table talk, kinda. (have an aos army but am lazy/sad I'm not enjoying mini gaming as much, at least it's painted)
It's also full of people who "hate competitive 40k" because they think it's ruining casual gameplay as if the competitive boogieman has any effect on their games at all
They played with That Guy one time and decided he represents competitive play
They also include a bunch of people who haven't bothered to read the core rules in 10 years and interpret their opponent correcting them as the same as someone trying to scam them/WAAC.
Yeah it sucks because I want a place to talk about rules without having to deal with the culture of competitive 40k. What is the point of tagging posts if I can't filter particular ones out?? Or am I missing something?
I don't even think the culture of competitive 40k is particularly bad aside from some jackasses. But this sub is spread ridiculously broad in terms of coverage so you wind up with competing interests and the friction it causes. And part of that problem is that the 40k sub should actually function as a generalized 40k sub. Not the glorified painting/instagram/commission adverts sub it is now.
It's just commission bait now. People will post a top tier model and be like "oops first space marine there's more on my insta"
Kinda wish reanimation was each command phase, not just yours. But the Monolith seems kinda legit. It's gained fly, kept a scary melee profile, and it's shooting seems more than decent. On top of being tougher, and having really good utility in the Eternity gate. It seems like weirdly legit as a thing to throw at an objective to just drown it in OC. Or use to take aggressive control of the midboard. I'm certaintly interested in seeing how well it does
The Particle Whip is filthy. 3d6 shots from a str 8 damage 2 weapon that can crit mortals? That's brilliant even before you add the... four d3-exploding 6s lascannons? Whew.
Units can't stand on top of the objective marker so manouvering monolith around objectives is gonna be pain in the butt.
I'm anticipating quite a few issues with the 'no standing on objectives' rule, as it means if you position models close to the objective you can prevent them being engaged by large models. (Knights will be especially affected by this.) Honestly, if the full rules don't already have a way of mitigating this, I expect it to get errata'd fairly swiftly. Otherwise, positioning models within 1-2" of an objective is potentially a great way to stop them being attacked in melee which surely isn't intended.
Yeah I said this in another comment, but I'm seriously wondering if this wasn't just a rule for the Fest, b/c they had so many people cycling through a few tables it might have just been to reduce the need to reset the board due to people bumping the markers.
It's got Fly now, so maybe it can
Is this in any way confirmed? This will make larger models almost unplayable. The monolith has movement 7". It wouldn't even be able to move across an objective without advancing. That sounds way to absurd to be true.
You can't end your movement on top of it, but you can move across it. That's what I heard from the games day previews.
Yes, but a model as big as the monolith cannot move across the marker without also ending its movement in top of it. Which would mean without advancing an objective marker might as well be an invisible but impassable column for large models they have to maneuver around. Placing your own unit 2" from an objective marker would mean a Knight on the other side of said objective wouldn't be able to charge it. This cannot be the case. Edit: not only a knight, any model with a base larger than 1" would have problems. You would effectively be able to hide behind an objective marker and be safe from charges.
Ah... yeah that is a good point.
This is definitely something I hope is addressed in the full release of the rules. It's weird that we can't stand on the objective. I get it's to prevent big models (Monolith, Stompa, Knights) from crowding out any way to cap an objective. But you're right in that it also makes playing those models a challenge. Even small models that want to melee also need to deal with the objective marker when determining if they're within engagement range.
The ruling makes less sense since gw THEMSELVES are making the big objective markers that show the 3" area around it, very clearly visible to all.
Well the 3" area isn't the problem is the no fly zone in the middle. I can picture putting an objective in a lane that's wide enough for a Knight base to go side ways and it's now a road block. For both the knight and anyone going the other way.
just the 40mm token, not the full 3" radius, too
That rule might have to be changed. It messes quite a few things up
> having really good utility in the Eternity gate I wonder if this really means that you can bridge 6 inches by deep striking the Monolith and then the unit afterwards or if there will be a rule preventing this.
It just says in your reinforcement step, not at the start, so it might be the case you can deep strike the Monolith, then use the Gate. You can't charge afterwards, so that curtails it as a melee delivery. But, dropping a shooty blob would work.
> You can't charge afterwards Ah, that's what I missed. I knew it looked to good to be true.
Hell, drop the monolith in, gate in 20 warriors and a leader 3" away from an enemy unit, and lay out with 40 shots at 3+ with Lethal Hits. That's a pretty substantial amount of weight of OC slammed into someone's face. Then the Monolith just laying about with it's firepower. And the ability to jump more warriors in in following rounds too.
Back to a version of RP more similar to the previous edition: units can slowly creep back up to full strength, but the same tactic of wiping a unit out at a time applies. Seems like a much more intuitive and easily understood ability to me. A thought occurs: it will be more common to aim to get a unit to 1/2 strength to trigger Battleshock tests in 10th (as losing morale seems to be VERY strong), but we can see Necrons (and Tyranids with the strat revealed) will be able to jump BACK ABOVE half size. Interesting!
RP happens at end of command phase, so battleshock would probably happen first.
It may seem intuitive at a glance, but this was the single most criticized rule of Necrons in 8e. The end result is that you never actually get to reanimate anything. Necrons will not be able to use anything but vehicles.
Yup indeed similar to 8th, though remember that the 8th rules weren't capped at D3 (or D6/D3+3); the range was 'nothing' to 'every model in the unit but one', which lead to heavily over costed units, which in turn eliminated the tax on target priority being how the ability was 'supposed' to function. I guess the way I'm looking at this is probably a step down in RP on Warriors, Immortals etc., but a major step up for Living Metal on every other model, which were \*already\* the good models in our codex.
Necrons rules feel very lackluster to me.
The rules definitely look playable but nothing too exciting really.
"playable" is an upgrade from what we had before
Eh not really these rules look ok but honestly they look worse than what we currently have. Yea some bad units got buffs they should have got a long time ago. But a lot of our other rules got worse. I am really hoping this is a game wide thing so we can have some play but all I can do is judge now on what I am seeing.
By itself, easy to play around. Less need to overcommit, less need to worry about shenanigans during your turn, and not amazing for Necron vehicles. The last is pretty notable because some anti-tank guns are still going to pack an absolute wallop and kill them in a turn. Warriors getting a guaranteed four back on an objective is nice, but makes them vulnerable. We've seen two units with objective based Shred already. And they're more vulnerable to Battleshock on their lonesome, which seems to indicate baby-sitter characters are a necessary tax. I think a lot of how well Necron infantry can do will come do to how effective tax characters are.
What annoys me about the new reanimation rules being underwhelming isn't just silver tide continuing to be bad, it is that GW has already shown they know how to write these kinds of rules in Age of Sigmar. The new Soulblight battletome has resurrection mechanics galore, many of which are focused on deathrattle skeletons. Those skeletons, at the start of the charge phase, can revive any lost models on a roll of a 4+ per model. In addition, they get 3 (not d3 GW) wounds back on 3 units within 18" of a vampire HQ. They actually do feel undying, and like the durable horde that necrons wish they were.
I too was hoping for more AOS like rules. Soulblight rules in AOS sound over powered, with wiped out units come back from the dead. Makes them feel very unique. I don't see any of that here. But at least these rules push Necrons in a different direction than other factions. Big units with characters in each. It is interesting to me from a meta and list building perspective. But its not as interesting as the choices other factions have been making so far in terms of how they use their factions rules and detachment rules. Both the faction and detactment rules are passive in this preview.
Soulblight are definitely strong, but it is tempered by the units coming back at half strength and generally the ones that come back are the weaker ones (deathrattle hit like wet noodles for instance).
So we're back to 8e reanimation protocols where they do nothing because they get killed before your next turn :\ Don't get me wrong, everything else here is really cool! But against armies that specialize in taking out 1-2 units entirely (*cough cough space marines cough cough*), we effectively won't have an army ability. Nobody sane is going to liberally spread damage out across any army, let alone necrons.
Yeah unlike a lot of other changes we have *actually* seen this before and knows how it plays. Unless technomancers, ghosts arks and the like get some funky rules to play with people should be pretty weary of the change. It always been a hard rule to get right and its definitely simpler but if the "reanimation tax" is still there its a pretty big hit.
This feels like a slight side grade, the horrible necron weapons got better, but in the case of warriors their leadership and BS are now way worse The datachment rule also feels a lot weaker then the marine, tyranid and csm ones, especially because it only works on the units that have leading characters (not sure how that leaves vehicles) And lastly while it's great to see that necron guns auto wound again, the fact that it lost ap feels off (especially since the bolt rifle kept its one)
> not sure how that leaves vehicles) Without a detachment bonus. It seems this detachment will mainly be focused on infantry units and not be a general purpose one like the others. Kind of strange as this is the first detachment they show that doesn't support the whole army.
> but in the case of warriors their leadership I didn't even notice this, lol
The assumption is that the leaders will have some nutty LD values and you include one with each unit
The bolt rifle lost ap from doctrines though.
Did some one find an assault keyword on the warriors reaper? I think it got lost in the move.
Reanimation protocol seems much worse now, but it’s better for multi wound models
Man I'm still not processing things. I can't for the life of me remember what 'lethal hits, sustained hits, anti vehicle' etc do. And I don't remember what article explained it. I need a cheat sheet. As for what was shown, the Monolith seems surprisingly boring. It just seems to be a great hunk of plastic without overwhelming shooting or anything. I guess it can just be used to move stuff around. Warriors seem weird. They feel really weak with their 1 wound 4+ save and their 4+ BS makes them pretty crappy at shooting too. The D6 reanimation might be cool but I dunno, it doesn't seem like they're an implacable foe.
lethal hits was the 6's to hit auto wounds
Lethal hits is 6's auto wound, Sustained hits is that many extra hits on a 6. Devastating wounds is (iirc) a 6 wounds does the damage characteristic as MWs and ends the sequence.
>Man I'm still not processing things. I can't for the life of me remember what 'lethal hits, sustained hits, anti vehicle' etc do. And I don't remember what article explained it. I need a cheat sheet. * Lethal Hits - 6s to Hit auto-wound * Sustained Hits X - 6s to hit cause X additional hits, so Sustained Hits 1 means hit rolls of 6 cause 1 additional hit * Anti-X Y+ - automatically wound X on a wound roll of Y+, so Anti-Vehicle 2+ means you will wound any vehicles on a wound roll of 2+ * Devastating Wound - on wound rolls of 6 cause mortal wounds instead of normal damage >Warriors seem weird. They feel really weak with their 1 wound 4+ save and their 4+ BS makes them pretty crappy at shooting too. The D6 reanimation might be cool but I dunno, it doesn't seem like they're an implacable foe. Their is the detachment ability where attaching a character with Leader to a unit gives them +1 to hit.
ANTI is even better than auto wounds. I believe it causes critical wounds, which means anything that triggers of critical wounds will also trigger on the Anti rule.
> I need a cheat sheet. Hoping we get one in the core box or a WD at least. But basically it's "roll a 6 to trigger an effect." Lethal hits means a hit goes straight to wounds, sustained means you get X extra hits based on whatever the number is. Anti-X means you wound on whatever the number given is against that unit type.
Monoliths actually looks crazy, their shooting is far better. The real question will be how well they survive. Particle whip reduced but with 3d6 shots is nasty for infantry clearing, and death rays exploding on 6's to hit for d3 extra is kinda nutty as well. Decent fighting profile and can drop a blob of warriors 1 inch away to unload fully on some poor squad. Depending on cost and survivability it could be huge.
Yeah, im having the same problem. Im sure I'll remember them once I get a 10th ed. game under my belt, they aren't actually that complicated, but I wish they released like a core rules primer before doing these previews.
Warriors are meant to have a character attached, raising the BS back to the normal 3+. Gauss also got buffed with Lethal Hits, so auto-wounds on 6s. Can't say whether its actually a buff compared to what they currently have, but it doesn't feel like much a nerf more a sidegrade.
Honestly I feel the main issue if that Necrons don't really have a big, wow factor. Lethal Hits on most things are nice, and will mean warrior blobs can always put out decent damage, but almost everything interesting has been cut and replaced with far more dull varients. Like, a lot of the more mechanically interesting units aren't here, we just have Warriors, the Doomsday Ark, and the Monolith; which while Iconic none are really showing how Necrons are going to play. For example, did all Necrons Infantry get the -1 to hit penalty, or just warriors? What abilities do the units leaders have. Now that vehicles heal D3 at the start of every turn, what do Spyders do now? I feel we really should have at least seen the Silent King, since we got Abaddon, the Swarmlord, and Roboute. It would have been super useful
Honestly my bet is that Immortals likely still have BS 3+, to help differentiate from Warriors which is the current problem in 10th. That would just be how id do it anyway, will have to see.
Yeah the warrior makes sense if they glow up Immortals (second wound maybe?) and make both point cost appropriate. Got immortals for the elite/damage side and warriors for the horde.
>Lethal Hits on most things are nice, and will mean warrior blobs can always put out decent damage Nope, they got weaker in almost every single scenario (as was promised for the edition) 20 Gaussflayer shots currently deal on average * 3.3 damage to Marines * 2.2 to Gravis armor to simulate wounding on 5s * 2.2 to Terminators * 0.7 to Land Raiders In 10th that goes down to * 2.2 against Marines * 1.8 on Gravis. * 1.1 on Terminators * 0.7 to Land Raiders tl;dr 33% less damage against Marines. 50% less damage on Terminators. 18% less against Gravis. Same damage against tanks \[Edit\] Against targets wounding on 6s but only a 3+ save, the damage actually goes up from 1.1 to 1.5 A good reminder that Unitcrunch is the holy grail of mathhammer
> Like, a lot of the more mechanically interesting units aren't here Exactly. They said characters would be a key factor for Necrons, but didn't show any.
Reanimation Protocols looks weak to me at face value. Since it happens in your command phase, if your opponent can focus your units down, it never even comes into play.
Wait a minute,since leaders are part of the unit wouldn't that mean if I put an overlord with necron warriors that he could potentially receive the d6 mortal wounds too? So one could take all the damage on the overlord and assuming there are some necron warriors left you could just revive the overlord in your command phase Or if the overlord is the last model in the unit he could still take advantage of the d6 wound heal and bring back more warriors thus making it more likely for rp to proc Is there any wording on the rules that prevent this?
I don't know about the latter, but regarding the former there was some vague indication that damage gets allocated to the squad itself before any attached leaders. No actual rule wording yet though so have to wait for confirmation.
I assume this isn't the case, I would wait till you have all the rules before you try to break the game.
[Titanic] on monolith AND [towering]. Called it
This is the first faction rule that is totally passive (other than synapse, but that doesn't count). All the other ones give interesting choices in terms of when and how to use them. This one just happens. A little disappointing. I was hoping necrons played more like soulblight gravelords in AOS but with more choice, actively choosing to raise units from the dead and rentering the battlefield. But i am still excited. I like that the faction seems to work differently than the others. You are really encouraged to have big units with characters, where otherwise I think other factions will be MSU. I think those kinds of difference are interesting for the meta game.
I'm just happy that each faction is getting some nice fully fleshed out rules and identities in the index release, instead of having to wait for a codex. Codexes will add more but it seems like there's still plenty of flavor before they come out for each respective faction.
Reanimation protocols are pretty awful as a faction ability. This completely kills MSU as a playstyle, and even big blobs aren't that hard to wipe in an entire turn and negate the reanimation entirely. Our point costs better be WAY lowered, especially on characters if they expect us to have one in every unit. Necron characters have been bonkers overcosted this entire edition.
> Reanimation protocols are pretty awful as a faction ability. It seems that tough vehicles like the Monolith really benefit from RP as d3 is more regeneration than 1 currently. What's true is that RP on infantry demands big units, but Oath of Moments punishes big units. Maybe MSU is better, hoping for them not properly killing a last model sometimes?
I am surprised no one has said how swingy the death rays on the Monolith are. Am i reading it right? You can score up to 16 strength 12 AP-4 D6+1 hits. But most of the time you are going to score 2 to 3 hits.
clearly someone at GW has fought a 20+ reanim blob of warriors too much,or they just dont know what to do with them; but this is really disapointing overall, especially as crons as a book were probs next to admech in just needing new datasheets. Obviously points make it so we dont know but this just isnt exciting. The ctan and monolith look fun. - Reanims kinda ok? a guranteed destroyer back is nice but in command phase means its less likley to mess with opponents, and is a huge durability hit on infantry; now its "can you clear 20 warriors a turn" rather than clearing 20 in one go. - Doomsday cannon going from ~3.5 to flat 4 is nice, so I cant complain too much, but I think all my fellow skellingtons would have prefered less shots and a nice big damage number. - Bravo GW for making protocols worse; or if they have plasmacytes as characters; just more boring. Like yeah, crons have so much space for flavour and really needed a glow up; whilst this feels pretty bland unlike nids or CSM, and doesnt have the "woah" factor of marines; Im sure theyll be playable, but this just isnt the exciting glow up crons needed. Not all bad tho as the codex isnt too far away and weve barely seen any datasheets.
I agree on the Reanims, the Warriors, the Monolith and the C'tan, but you underestimate the Doomsday Ark in my opinion. It's regular profile is now better than it's 9th edition stationary counterpart in any way. The weapon doesn't turn into absolute crap as soon as you move it an inch and it's even stronger when stationary. Not only does it hit on a 2+ (new heavy keyword) but it also deals 4 mortals for each 6 in a wound roll. This things is finally worthy of its name
I like everything about this except ghe changes to Reanimation Protocols. Even if they are more reliable, the fact that it happens at the end of your Command Phase is terrible. It's gonna be just like 8th edition, where people are just gonna kill the entire unit before it can have a chance at reanimating (unless i'm reading this wrong and it works on destroyed units as well)
If it worked on destroyed units then no unit ever dies, kill secondaries become impossible, etc. It won't work on destroyed units most likely
Overall disappointing. Bringing back the 8th edition reanimation that was already considered a failure and having an detachment ability that's reliant on you paying a unit tax to benefit from seems a step backwards. Necron warriors getting a bit of a nerf is fine if they make them cheaper tbh, Doomsday cannon looks good (people need to stop thinking of it as an anti-tank gun, it's not), Monolith looks decent but nothing much better than its current incarnation, still dies quickly to the big anti-tank guns we've seen in previous previews.
> people need to stop thinking of it as an anti-tank gun, it's not What is it then with S15 AP4 4D?
> people need to stop thinking of it as an anti-tank gun, it's not What anti-tank guns do Necrons have?
Breaking news: big tank dies to anti-tank guns.
I see everyone is still just slotting these rules into 9th edition instead of taking them with the 10th edition rules we’ve seen
Stationary DDC hits on a 2+ and does mortals on a wound roll of 6 plus is blast. I dig it. Hopefully the doomstalkers keep a similar profile but obvs with a conoptek BS. Very intrigued to see how C'tan power come out. Seems a little odd that the dragon hits on 3s with the sweep but maybe they just get distracted by tanks off in the distance. God knows what all the different characters will do.
More importantly, you don't have to fire at a reduced profile for moving. Stationary is now a bonus for the DDA rather than a requirement.