Hey everybody,
Last week I finally picked up a copy of the Necrons codex for Warhammer 40k 10th edition, and while I’ve hardly been poring over the details for the whole time, I have been trying to take some time to digest the book, and see how my favourite soulless space robots are going to work in the new edition. I’ve mentioned in passing a few times that I have been uninspired by 10th edition so far, but I’m hoping that by picking up the book, I’ll be able to dive into the faction and, at the very least, I can start to play my favourite faction!
The upgrade from free index cards to the codex sees the army gain a number of different detachments, which are the thing for this edition. We had the original Awakened Dynasty, then four more detachments that lean heavily into different aspects of the army. So there’s one for the destroyer cult, for instance, and one that emphasizes the elite stuff like Praetorians and Lychguard. As I am a massive fan of the Lychguard as models, I was naturally drawn to this one, the Obeisance Phalanx. This lets you select an enemy unit in the command phase, then Overlords, Triarch units and Lychguard get +1 to wound when they go up against that unit. It’s not bad, but it’s only one enemy unit, so it’s not great, either. If you destroy that unit in the shooting phase, for instance, then your melee Lychguard will have nothing else to do.
But still. Detachments come with enhancements, of course, and six new stratagems, so that’s always good. The stratagems in the Obeisance Phalanx are quite nice, including some defensive stuff as well as a fights-on-death thing. There’s an enhancement that forces your opponent to lose command points when you destroy their characters, which could be useful. Nothing really stands out, but I suppose I’ve not been playing, and so not really in the zone for this edition to really see the nuances just yet.
The Army Rule is still Reanimation Protocols, of course, and I am overjoyed that it still works as it used to back in 7th edition, or whenever it was, with units being able to continually reanimate, and not just reanimate models lost in the previous round. Necrons are not very often a strong army, unfortunately, so having this ability is what keeps them going, in my mind!
In terms of the army list, whenever I get to play with the Necrons next, this is the list I shall be intending to run with…
The Command Barge is a nice centrepiece, of course, and it gives Necrons within 6” +1 to their objective control characteristic. So I think having that among a blob of Immortals who are camping an objective can be useful, although with a 10” move, I suppose there’s nothing to stop it zipping off to help out wherever it’s needed!
The Plasmancer is definitely an interesting model, one that I hadn’t really looked at before 10th edition. He lets the unit he is leading score critical hits on 5s, so he lets Immortals with tesla carbines get their 2 additional hits on 5s, rather than 6s. He can also dish out up to 4 mortal wounds on a unit within 18” thanks to living lightning, and his plasmic lance is nothing to sniff at, either! Adding in the cryptothralls means the Plasmancer gets a 4+ feel no pain, so he should be hanging around for a while yet!
The Chronomancer is one of my favourite new models for the army, and now that I have the model, I want to include it where I can! He’s also quite useful, allowing his unit to move-shoot-move, and his unit gets some extra defence as he makes them -1 to hit.
The Lychguard have suffered a little bit, as they’re quite expensive for a unit of ten. The warscythe makes 2 attacks, though it’s back to S8 AP-3 D2, and it hits on 3s so they should be quite decent in close combat. The trick, as always, is getting them there, because a 5” move just paints a target on them. It’s the strongest argument in favour of sticking with the original Awakened Dynasty detachment, because that has the Veil of Darkness enhancement that lets you pick up a unit and pop it back down somewhere. Although the Command Protocols rule from that detachment, which adds one to the hit roll, is also useful – Lychguard effectively hitting on 2s?!
There isn’t a great deal to say about things, though, that hasn’t already been said. I feel like this would be a good starting list to try out the army, and see how it performs at the 1250 points mark. Seven distinct blobs, once the characters have been allocated, with my usual suspects of three units of Immortals, the Command and the Annihilation Barges, then some Lychguard sprinkled on top. I do love the Lychguard!
While 10th edition hasn’t really got me excited so far, I think I have been slowly coming back round to it as the Christmas and New Year break brought things back round, and I am cautiously looking forward to getting some games in soon.
I do have a lot of Necrons-related content planned for the blog in the coming weeks and months, though. My first army, and my first love, I’ve been feeling a bit of nostalgia for them as we count down to my tenth anniversary, both in the wargaming hobby and here on wordpress, so I want to do something to mark the occasion! That might include actually getting the rest of my models painted…
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